Things Change
by TheSingingPterodactyl
Summary: When Cutter came back through an anomaly Claudia Brown no longer existed and Jenny Lewis took her face. What happens when Abby and Connor come back through an anomaly and things seemed to have changed? Things like their relationship. Taking place in Series 3. Final chapter up! Please R
1. The Jump Through

_**Disclaimer:**_** Primeval and it's characters are not mine, they belong to Impossible Pictures. No copyright intended.**

_**A/N: **_**This is an AU on top of another AU... Haha confusing, but you'll understand once you read. Enjoy the read!**

**This takes place in early Series 3 before Cutter's death, but a fair amount of time has passed since Stephen's death so let's say right before 3.3. The AU concept is that Connor and Abby go through an anomaly to bring some more ****unconscious ****Raptors back to the late Cretaceous but when they come back things aren't quite the same. **

* * *

"Connor, c'mon!" with another swing Connor knocked the Raptor to its side and he made a fun for it, catching up behind Abby who was waiting for him near the anomaly. The late Cretaceous, never a place they would want to be again.

Connor rushed beside her and they looked behind, seeing the Raptor moving around on the ground. "We better hurry!" Connor announced before charging after the bright, flickering light that seemed to be flickering more than usual.

"Connor, is it closing?" she yelled to him, he glanced to her as they ran as fast as they could through the trees and branches, he didn't know how to answer that. Seeing the look on Connor's face, Abby knew that that was exactly what it was doing. No, she was **_not_** going to live in the Cretaceous. She might have Connor, but being stuck here is the worst possible situation she could ever think of.

As the anomaly faded in and out, Connor grabbed Abby's hand and sped up the pace. She didn't even know they could go any faster, but with Connor's help they did. They finally reached the flickering anomaly and before Abby could even take a halt to see if there was any chance of making it through it without it closing on top of them Connor jumped through it, dragging Abby along with him. The next thing they knew they were laying on the ground in some woods that resembled the Forest of Dean – Abby looked over at Connor who was constantly inhaling to catch his breath and Abby did the same as she just looked at him and laughed.

"Just in time, I see." They heard Jenny's voice above them. Connor and Abby looked up and grinned as she was smiling back at them. "We were afraid you weren't going to make it through."

"You're not the only ones!" Connor remarked as he brought himself up, Abby doing the same. Looking behind them and the anomaly was closed; it was very likely that it closed right as they went through. Cutter came beside him and clapped Connor on the shoulder, smiling at the both of them.

"You two had me scared for a moment there."

"Awe, c'mon Professor, you know us. We always make it back." Cutter chuckled and stepped away from the two of them to stand beside Jenny. Connor and Abby looked around; the people all around seemed to multiply since they went through the anomaly.

"So no trouble then?" Jenny wondered.

Abby and Connor gave a mutual shrug and Abby answered this time. "Ya know, bringing a couple docile like creatures to the Cretaceous, what possibly could have gone wrong?"

"Just a Raptor here and there. Ya know, no problem." Connor finished. They laughed to each other, knowing it was a whole lot harder than anyone would have expected. Jenny and Cutter gave each other a curious look and went on.

"Well you did good," Cutter told them, giving them a warming smile. "Thank you." Connor looked down, remembering Cutter's hurt leg. He couldn't go through due to the 'dossal like creatures' attacking him from the feet. They decided Cutter was a food, and Cutter was determined they wouldn't hurt him since it was hurt itself.

"Course," Abby replied with a generous smile. She walked off, leaving Connor to talk to them, and Jenny gave an odd expression but didn't say anything, Connor just noticed Cutter returning it and bringing their attention back to him.

"Next time, we're sending the _men_ in the anomaly." Jenny said towards Connor.

Connor arched a brow and responded. "We did the job, yeah? It's their fault they took too long getting here."

"It was still dangerous, Connor. You two almost got stranded in the Cretaceous era."

"It'd be better if it was military men instead?" Connor said with a smirk, finding Jenny's attitude towards the soldiers funny.

"They would know how to survive," Jenny commented, hinting that he and Abby wouldn't last a day in there.

Connor almost snapped something back, but he held his tongue, knowing that Jenny was probably right. With a yawn from Jenny he noticed the sky growing darker; they'd been up since early hours in the morning to deal with this incursion and they just now we're done for the day. "Well I guess we should all head back to the ARC, give our reports in and everything."

"Awe, Jenny, can't I wait 'till tomorrow?" Connor whined at her. Jenny pursed her lips and rolled her eyes.

"Fine, but you still need to come by the ARC, I'm sure Becker would like to brief you 'bout the Cretaceous." Connor sighed and slumped his shoulders. He walked over to Abby who was helping some of the men pack up the equipment and she smiled at him.

"Tired?" she asked. Connor nodded and she teased him about this and that. While they joked and messed with each other, Cutter and Jenny intently watched their body language and actions.

"They don't seem mad at each other…" Jenny stated. Cutter shook his head and crossed his arms as he speculated.

"It could just be our imagination, you know. We both know Connor and Abby, when they're in an argument they don't tend to be very nice to each other."

"Or anyone for that matter."

"They're fine of course. We're just over analyzing it I'm sure."

Jenny furrowed her brow and shook her head. "No, they're acting like they did _before_… I'm worried about them, Nick."

Cutter turned to her and smiled. "Don't be, they're Connor and Abby – we know how they are, and standing here worrying over them is ridiculous. We sound like two parents worried for their child's marriage or something."

Jenny nodded, managing a smile, and sighed. "Suppose you're right, we need to head to the ARC anyway, no time for panicking."

"That's more like it." Cutter smiled at her and they walked separate ways to take care of the things needed to leave the sight. But no matter what they said, they did find Connor and Abby's ways odd and Cutter really worried more than Jenny, for he was afraid it was more than just an argument between them.

* * *

They made it to the ARC, all tired and rather useless if there were to be another anomaly. Abby groaned and sat in the common area as she rested her head on the couch and Connor looked through his locker to put some of his belongings away. Jenny entered the room, not near as tired as them, and sat down beside Abby. Connor looked over, seeing Jenny watching him as he dug through his locker. Eyeing her he closed the locker and walked over to sit in the chair across from her.

Jenny continued to stare before Connor finally found it uncomfortable and spoke. "Somethin' wrong?"

Jenny shook her head and leaned back, now looking at Abby who had opened her eyes and saw how Jenny was staring at them. "I actually was going to ask you two the same question."

"Us?" Abby asked.

"We're fine, few scratches and bruises, nothing we can't handle." Connor answered, not seeing why she seemed so suspicious.

"No, no. I meant are**_ you two_** all right." And this time Connor and Abby looked at each other, completely confused. What did she mean by that? They were fine. They really just wanted to go home to their beds and sleep in as long as they could until another anomaly called them or their alarm clocks woke them up.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Abby asked, sounding more offended than Connor would have expected.

"You two just seem … distant to each other. I was worried something happened in the Cretaceous."

"Uhh…" Abby found herself speechless. Did Jenny thing they were more than just friends?

"We're just tired, Jenn." He answered, still not getting the drift. Sarah walked in the room, looking exhausted from all the paper work and research she had been deepened into that day. She reached down for her bag and noticed Connor and Abby not sitting beside each other.

"Cutter said you guys went through an anomaly today," she started, still looking rather confused at their sitting positions. "Are you two okay?"

Now Connor was starting to catch onto it as well. It wasn't just 'are you okay?' – Everyone was asking if 'them **_two_**' were okay. Like they were more than just friends, like they were always together.

"We're fine, thanks." Connor answered with a smile, Sarah returning it and then letting out a yawn.

"Well, I'm going home. Glad you two are okay, have a nice night. You too, Jenny!" Jenny waved goodbye and Sarah left the common room with her bag over her shoulder and a worried expression.

Connor shook his head, trying to forget the way she said Jenny separate from them. Everyone was acting weird… but he was too tired to think about it. Connor stood up and went to the kitchen area for a soda or something.

"I'm sorry if I'm coming off too weird or Mother Hen like, you two just seem… distant, is all. But if you insist you're fine then I believe you. I'll leave it at that."

Abby just stared at her. What was she even talking about? Distant? She was treating Connor like she always does! "Why is everyone saying 'you two' and acting like we're some married couple!" she finally released, Connor listening and somewhat agreeing. "Connor and I are fine, we're just two good friends who happen to be flat mates, and went through an anomaly together! For god's sake, if someone asks if **_we_**are okay again I'm going to scream!" she flopped back on the sofa and Connor didn't turn towards them, he just could imagine the shock on Jenny's face and bags under Abby's eyes starting to show.

"Very funny, Abby." She commented. This time Connor swung around and saw a smirk on Jenny's face, Abby looking at Jenny like she had just lost it.

"I'm not joking." Abby insisted.

"Abby, I bloody well would know if you guys never dated!" and Connor dropped the empty cup that he gripped in his hand. It bounced onto the carpet, somehow not shattering but cracking down the side of the glass. He apologized and leaned down to pick it up as he heard Abby just scoff.

"Connor and me? Dating?"

"Yes!" Jenny said irritated, Connor fiddling around for the glass that was in front of him. "Dating! Like every time you mention your date nights and how lovely they were and how Connor is the best boyfriend a girl could have and-" she looked over, seeing Connor staring in complete shock. His mouth was practically open as his eyes were wide and almost scared looking. Abby looked over at him, a blush casting her face even though she knew she has never said such things before.

Jenny saw the shock covering both their faces and she realized there **_was_** something going on, but more than she thought in the beginning. This was more than just an argument causing tension between them; they really had no idea what Jenny was talking about. "Oh lord, you both really don't know do you?"

Connor still kneeled to the floor he tried to speak. "Jenny, Abby and I are just-"

"Yes, just mates, I understand…" Jenny stood up and before walking off she twisted back to them and looked appalled. "Are you two trying to pull my leg? Because I don't find it very amusing!" they both softly shook their heads and she sighed. "You two have been dating for over a year now!"

Connor and Abby looked at each other, astonished at what she claimed. Abby was speechless again and Connor finally stood up from the ground and looked at her, almost wanting this to be true so he had to make sure she was serious. "We what?"

* * *

_**More ch. will be posted! Just not yet. I hope this first ch. gets the feel of what's going on, they'll discover other little things not quite right later in the story, 'specially in the next ch.**_

Reviews are like Lasagna.  
I love Lasagna.


	2. The Obvious Blunder

"Jenny, we never-!" Connor sighed and looked over at Abby who was just sitting there with an expressionless face. "You guys have all lost it."

"This isn't some obvious blunder, Connor." Jenny contended. "The whole team knows, you guys announced it to us when you had been dating not-very-secretly for a month."

"That…" Connor plopped on the couch beside Abby and tilted his head back as he rubbed his hands over his face. "What universe did we step into?" he mumbled to himself, half-jokingly. Suddenly Abby's face brightened and she elbowed Connor in the side. "Oi!"

"That's it!"

Connor looked at her completely confused. "What's 'it'…?"

"Christ Connor, you can be so thick sometimes! - Jenny, where's Cutter?"

"In the lab, like he always is." She said with an eye roll and Abby sprung to her feet, dragging Connor with her. Jenny watched and smiled. No matter what was going on, those two always made her laugh.

"Cutter!" Abby dashed into the lab, bringing Connor behind her, holding him by the wrist. "Cutter," she said once more for him to look her way. Cutter turned his head to the two crazy teammates and raised a brow.

"Something wrong?" he asked, hiding the smile that begged to slip along his lips. He couldn't help it, when they acted like this it was rather amusing. Abby was about to speak when Connor let out a sudden breath of surprise and his eyes gazed the lab. Abby did the same and they both looked bemused at the lab they were in every work day.

"Did you redecorate?" Connor said, looking at what seemed to be a completely remodeled lab-room since last time they'd seen it.

"No, it's been the same since the ARC was built."

Abby twirled around to face Cutter and took in a deep breath. "Cutter, do you remember when Claudia Brown disappeared?"

Cutter looked at her with narrow eyes and turned his stool to no longer have to crook his neck. "I never forgot about her, if that's what you mean. Although, I don't believe you ever met her."

"How did it happen?" she said curious, but in a rather abrupt manner. "You just came through the anomaly and she no longer existed?"

"That would be how to sum it up – Abby, if I can ask, why are **_you_** asking this?"

"This … this isn't right…" Abby buried her face into her hands and leaned on the counter. Her fingers swept through her spiked, platinum blond hair and she folded one arm across her ribcage as the other hand covered her face and her eyes stayed shut, hiding in the tears that were overwhelming her. Connor rested his hand on her shoulder, seeing now why she was acting this way. They came through the anomaly and something's changed; or a lot of something's. The people who work the lab are different, there's a person running the ADD, Becker made a comment about how this was their first anomaly. They had gone to the future before this one, but this time they went in the past and somehow that has changed things.

"I was afraid of this." Cutter concluded. Connor's eyes widened and Abby raised her head from her hand. "When you two came back, you acted … different. I was afraid something had been altered."

"We haven't been altered! You all have been … everything's different!" Abby exclaimed. "You're lab was ten times **_smaller_** before the anomaly. There's dozens of people working here, the whole ARC I'm starting to think is just bigger in general! And Jenny keeps saying-!" Abby looked at Connor and then leaned back to the counter, taking a deep breath in and allowing Connor to speak.

"Is this because we went through an anomaly?" Cutter looked at concerned. He looked back at his papers, pushed them aside, and laid his arm over the counter before answering Connor certainly.

"I would assume." He finally let out. Abby took in another deep breath as if ready to say something, but she stayed silent. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have sent you through."

"Cutter, you were injured." Connor reminded him, Cutter looking down at his broken ankle now securely in a cast. It even still itched from the wounds under the scratchy plaster. "We'll be fine, it's not like anything drastic has changed …"

"Nothing **_too_** drastic." Abby said with a groan as she eyed Connor over the part that was really causing her so much panic. He didn't even fully understand why the thought of him and made her so hysterical, it was shocking when Jenny first said it but for him it was just because he'd always dreamed of being with Abby. "Could we go back?"

Cutter looked at Abby with a frown, thinking she would know better than to ask such questions. "No, going back to change something that there's no telling how it even changed from the start can cause a severe outcome. That's messing with the balance of things another time over, Abby. It's too dangerous to say the least." He let out a sigh and looked over to a picture of Stephen. "We all know that."

"What do you mean 'we all know that'?" she asked, seeing the picture of Stephen. "You never went back for Claudia, it could've worked."

"Stephen," Cutter said like they should know what he meant by that. They were lost though. "You don't know?"

"Something different happened with Stephen here, I'm guessing." Connor commented. Cutter nodded, not wanting to go into any detail.

"Yes, I guess it did …" Cutter almost started to explain Stephen's death, but he didn't feel the need at the time. "Ya know, just because you were in a relationship before you went through the anomaly doesn't mean you have to be in one now." He said with a bit of a smirk. Abby looked at Cutter with a blush and looked to the ground; Connor noticed her reaction and shrugged.

"We know, just weird is all."

"Why don't you two head home, get some rest. We can try to see if there's a way to fix this in the morning. You two still lived in the flat together, before this?" Abby nodded, but that was it. Cutter looked at Connor and gestured him to have Abby go home, since she stood there motionless. Connor gave a nod and gently placed his hand on her back, leading her to the exit of the lab. "And Abby," she turned to Cutter and he gave a soft smile. "Be grateful nothing too dire has happened. At least Connor still exists here." Abby smiled back and walked out of the lab and into the common room to grab their things. Walking out the ARC exit everyone watched them, whispering about them. They figured they all either noticed something was up and listened in to their conversation with Cutter, or Jenny told one of her co-workers and that co-worker told everyone else. No matter what the case, they all knew something was different about them.

"I should have known from the start," Becker spoke as they went through the security clearance. They looked at him and wondered if Becker somehow was closer to them in this alternative time line. They didn't really talk to Becker much before this, he was rather new, as was Sarah and she seemed to know them better, too. "You guys acted different."

At that Abby felt relieved, he didn't call them 'you two'. That was the first, and it made her smile. "How's that?" she asked as Connor waited behind her.

"You just …" he looked at the two of them, seeing how they waited for a response. There was something just different about how they acted. "I don't know, you're the same, but not. Makes sense I guess – events happened differently."

"We don't know that." Connor added. "We haven't really compared stories quite yet."

Becker looked at him and laughed. "You two hardly even know me, don't you?" They didn't say anything to that, they didn't really know how. "Events happened differently, trust me on that." And the phone from one of the other security exits rang in. Becker answered, giving them a wave, and they silently walked out feeling horrible for Becker losing friends.

* * *

Once they arrived home Abby worried that they never had Rex, but it seemed he was there, safe and sound, same old Rex just like they left him. They were however stressed over the fact that their flat looked completely different which they couldn't seem to wrap their minds around. It was in the same location, but the flat looked nothing like their old one. Instead of the door directly leading to stairs, there was a living area and kitchen on the main floor. All her snakes and reptiles were around in glass tanks, which confused Abby because she brought a lot of them back to the zoo once she left completely; having no time to even volunteer anymore. There were stairs that seemed to lead up to a loft area but Abby's room was across the sitting area and had a bathroom right beside it.

In their old flat Connor had the small loft area to himself to sleep in so walked up the stairs; assuming it that to be his sleeping arguments in this new flat lay out. "Abs," Connor hollered from up the stairs.

"Yeah?" she shouted back. She was looking around the kitchen when Connor leaned over the railing and looked at her worried. "Wha'?"

"I … uhh…" he paused, looked behind him, and shook his head. "Never mind, not important." The he disappeared back into the loft. Abby was suspicious but let it be as she explored the kitchen some more. Rex seemed to know where everything was which was almost comforting to her, she didn't know why, but it made it seem more like home. She opened the fridge to see what they had when she realized how hungry she was and pulled out some leftover spaghetti. They had spaghetti every Wednesday night, so it was leftovers. She smiled thinking that at least those little traditions didn't change. Abby closed the fridge with the leftover in her hand to see Connor sneaking into her room.

"Conn, what are you doing?" Connor froze in his steps and slowly eased around to face her. "If you didn't notice, that's my room."

"Yeah," he said as he obviously tried to find what else to say along with it. "See Abs, err…" he let out a deep breath and let loose of his shoulders. "I need me sleeping clothes, I hate sleeping in me jeans and…"

"Then get them from your room…?-" and when she said that suddenly Abby felt like a hand slapped her right across the face. How stupid could she be! She and Connor were together for a **_year_** in whatever time line this was, they didn't live in separate rooms. Although she didn't even want to think about that she had to, because Connor's clothes were in a room that probably wasn't even called hers. Abby gave a blush and slowly gave a response. "Oh."

* * *

_**A/N:**_** Hope you liked the second chapter! Third chapter will be up tomorrow most likely. I enjoyed you guys Reviews, keep Reviewing - I really appreciate it!**


	3. The Living Arrangements

_**A/N: **_**So chapter 3! Short, sorry about that. Tomorrow I'll be posting another chapter and it gets more into the story, this one was just enough to make a chapter too long so it became it's own chapter. **

* * *

"M'Sorry Abs, I was just going to try and find some clothes for tomorrow and me boxers-"

"Connor," she gave a smile. "It's fine, it's not like you were trying to sleep in there." She sat the container of leftovers down and walked passed him and into her room. Abby's room looked similar to the old flats room, the bed was in the middle and the white comforter stayed nicely tucked in and made up as the window stayed open and the curtain that draped the window matched the bedding. But when they walked in they both noticed how the room was larger than the last, and the bed was a Queen size instead of a Full; Abby looked over at Connor who was admiring the paintings on the wall and sighed. This obviously was both their room, Connor's clothes were scattered around a laundry basket as Abby's was on the other side of the bed, all packed in her hamper tightly. His laptop was on the left side of the bed where his clothes that were scattered and his shoes were on that side as well.

It felt odd being in this room, in this flat for that matter. It was like being in someone else's home. All their belongings were there just they were laid out and placed where she never remembered placing it there. Obviously, since she **_didn't_**. But then it made her think, it _was _her, just … it was her she didn't remember. She felt a flush fill her face seeing how cozy and warm this room looked. It was like a married couple's room, a married couple's flat for that matter! And it was with Connor. This was just … too weird.

Abby quickly looked in the closet and saw their clothes all hung up and cleaned. She peeped out seeing Connor getting his other needed material from the drawer on the other side of the room. He had this under control. She gave him a flash of a smile and made her way out of the room as fast as she possibly could.

Connor picked out his things from the drawer when he saw Abby manage to smile at him and practically run out of the room. She wasn't taking to this change very well. Connor didn't blame her, this was pretty bizarre. But he couldn't help but feel somewhat hurt at how offensive she was to the idea of them being together. Thinking about it, it did make living together awfully awkward and that bothered him even more… What if Abby told him to move out? Connor turned around and noticed how much of his style and opinion was now put in this room. The walls were a more happy looking color blue; the pillow cases brought color as well. The furniture looked like some of it was his and he was pretty certain the random coo-coo clock nailed to the wall was his grans. He noticed an engraving in the wooden clock that said "_Curse of the Coo-Coo Clocks_" and he frowned. What on earth was that about?

Connor strolled into the closet, surprised at how neat everything was, grabbed some of his things and walked out seeing Abby at the kitchen counting staring firmly at the pot on the stove. She was making tea it looked like. She did that when she wanted to calm down.

"Make me a cup?" Connor asked before he walked up the stairs to the loft. Abby turned to him and nodded, but her expression was starting to worry him.

When he came back down he took a deep breath, knowing they needed to talk this over. This was bothering her more than it should. They were still the same people and the same friends were still around. They just had a different flat and they had different sleeping and living arrangements that could easily be fixed, no biggie. But when he approached the counter Abby looked even more distressed as she held back tears that wanted to stream down her face. She was only holding them back because of him. "Abs…?"

"Look at this!" she said in a much louder tone than needed as she shoved a mug in front of his face. Connor took the mug from her hand and saw a crack down the side. It was her favorite mug to use, but nothing to cry over. "I don't remember breaking it, Connor." She said, lowering her voice.

"Abby,-"

"I know, I know. I didn't. That's why I'm … **_I _**didn't break it, a person who looked like me did."

"I beg to differ. This cup belonged to Abigail Sarah Maitland, and last time I checked," Connor sat down at a stool to look her in the eyes. "You **_are_** Abigail Sarah Maitland."

"Connor, it's like we're in someone's home! I feel like we **_killed_** the people who lived here! We took them out of existence… And I feel…"

"We are them, Abby. We just don't have all of the same memories, that's all." He looked down to see the mug again, seeing how it was preserved. "See, look! When you, more likely _I_ broke this, you preserved it. You kept it with you even though it was broken, why? Because your brother gave you this mug when you were little and it's been your favorite one ever since. Try to tell me that if this wasn't broken, and I dropped it right now, you wouldn't have done the same."

"This still feels wrong, Connor." She let out an exhale and propped her elbows to the counter to look him in the eyes. "We practically lived like a married couple."

Connor smiled. "Well, I don't know 'bout married."

Abby raised a brow and picked up another mug sitting in front of her, she turned it around and showed Connor the text. It said **_'Abby and Connor'_** and a date under it. It must have been for a one year anniversary or something. "No?" she said, teasing him. At least she was teasing him again.

"It was probably a gift from Jenny or something." Connor assured, a smile still glued to her face.

Abby smirked back at him and sat it down. "I'm sure." Then it stayed quiet between them as the tea sat ready in the pot, not really wanting any anymore.

"Abby," she looked up from the counter to him, he was a bit nervous to ask but he might as well, they'd seen the sleeping arrangements already, couldn't get more weird. "How do you think we got together?"

Abby shrugged, not really acting like she wanted to talk about it. To Connor's surprise she answered with actual words. "Suppose it wasn't that hard, if we loved each other that way here."

Connor gulped down, realizing Abby didn't even think that Connor might actually feel that way now. They were just pals, mates, it was what they always would be her guessed. "Yeah… Or I just won you over with my adorable, quirky charm."

Abby let out a snort and saw that huge grin covering his face. She didn't want to admit it, but he had already done that. Maybe that's why all of this was so weird to her; it was an Abby that had the courage to do something she yet had found in herself. Who knows, it could have been Connor who took that big leap of faith, but she doubted it. Connor had no idea how she felt about him and if he didn't have a clue on her feelings then he wouldn't have taken a risk like that.

She finally decided to respond, knowing Connor was waiting. "Yeah, maybe so."

* * *

_**Reviews are like Blue Bell Ice-cream.**_

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	4. The Hardest Part

Connor stretched his arms out as he woke up from the couch he slept on in the loft. It was morning now, and no matter what had happened, work was work. Connor kept thinking about how things must have gone down, if Abby and he were together for a year then he must have never dated Caroline, or was **_tricked_** by Caroline. He wondered if Leak had even tried to kill everyone or if Helen ever came back.

He dragged his feet downstairs to take a shower, since they apparently shared a bathroom in this flat. He was just glad it was outside of Abby's room, not attached to it.

His back hurt from the sofa, but he wouldn't tell Abby that. She asked him over and over again last night if it was all right to not have a bed, she even offered for her to sleep on the sofa, but Connor wouldn't possibly let Abby sleep on the couch in _her_ flat. Though, he guessed in a confusing way it was more of his flat then it was before, he wouldn't ever make Abby be more uncomfortable than needed.

Connor came to the door and paused. The water was running – Abby must be in the shower. He groaned to himself and headed upstairs again. He could take a shower after work, but Abby took forever in the shower and they needed to be at work pretty soon.

Abby was dressed and dried; she looked in the fogged mirror of the bathroom and messed with her wet hair. She wondered if her hair looked different before she went into the anomaly… then she stopped herself from thinking too far into things. That just confused her. How could they go in and when they came back it was like they were in a completely different world? But at the same time, it was the same. The world was the same at least, even if the details around them were changed.

She saw the towels on the towel rack, hanging off nice and neat. One was red and one was blue, she could only assume hers was the red one. She had brought another towel from the cabinet in here, feeling weird to use a towel of someone else's even if it was _hers_. Even the bathroom made her feel weird, everything was in pairs in this flat – everything. If it wasn't in pairs, it was shared. The towels were in pairs, the soaps were in pairs, the toothbrushes were in pairs, the toothpaste was shared.

It dawned on Abby that time was still an element in this timeline, and she still had work. She reached under the sink to get her hairdryer and it made her smile. At least that wasn't shared or in pairs. If it was she would start to worry for Connor's integrity.

"Abs, you 'bout ready?" Connor shouted outside the bathroom.

"Yeah, just need to dry my hair!"

Connor sighed. _Women_. Deciding he had time to eat on the wait he walked over to the kitchen and looked inside the fridge. Everything was in containers, and the meals all were in two things – like pairs. One for Connor, one for Abby – they even had the name written on them. Probably had to do with severing's and knowing himself, he probably ate Abby's often and complained because it wasn't enough so she labeled them. He picked up the milk and closed the fridge, now seeing why Abby was finding it so weird. He supposed this was the hardest part, adjusting to all of it, but it was still all awfully strange.

He still couldn't believe it; he was in a relationship with **_Abby_**. Not now obviously, but he once was. He went over that in his head time and time again and he still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that he was in a long term relationship with Abby Maitland. He liked Abby, heck he _loved_ Abby, and that was exactly why he couldn't believe it. He has known Abby for almost three years now and she has never shown any indication of fancying him. Well, if he thought about it, there was an immense amount of flirting on her part but his part was just as mutual. That's just what Abby and he did.

Deep in thought Connor grabbed a bowl after finding it in whatever cabinets they kept them in and he poured the cereal Abby had left out on the counter – or he assumed Abby did, for all he knew he had left it out and just never happened to him.

How could any of this even be? If they came in a time that for them never happened and were now in that time presently, then wouldn't that make it never happen in the first place? How could he be looking at things that he probably left out but he knew he never left it out, it was another version of him? Connor's brain hurt when he thought about it. When he got to the ARC, he was asking Cutter about this. Cutter knew a whole lot more than he did and maybe, just maybe they could change it back. From what he knew there wasn't anyone that now existed because of the anomaly so maybe Cutter wouldn't be against it, not taking away another life for their benefit? Knowing Cutter it was very unlikely, especially how he acted about whatever happened with Stephen, but he was still hopeful.

After now realizing he had eaten half the bowl of cereal he messily poured himself, he heard the hairdryer turn off and hoped that meant Abby was ready to go. He was ready to leave this bizarre flat for the day, maybe chase some dinosaurs and close some anomalies, just get passed the hardest part of it all – adjusting.

Abby opened the door and came out of the bathroom. She looked as gorgeous as ever to Connor, but he hadn't the nerve to tell her that. She grabbed her bag and pulled out her keys before looking at him and speaking. "Ready?"

Connor nodded, placing the bowl in the sink. "Yup," he answered. He snatched his jacket and laptop from the couch and headed towards the door.

* * *

They walked through the security clearance considerably awkward like, Becker asking them how their first night here was, and Connor and Abby having no idea how to answer but a simple nod and 'Good'. Everywhere they went people still gave them that look, that look like they were trying to figure out what was so out of place about them. Usually Connor went straight to the ADD but someone was there this time, the same girl as last night. Abby gave her departing goodbyes and made her way to the menagerie when Connor found the courage to ask this girl if that was her job here.

"Ermm…" he let out, the brunette turning around to see him giving her a coy smile. "Guess you heard about me and Abby?" he asked, hoping it was a good start. The brunette gave a sweet, welcoming smile and nodded.

"I'm afraid I have… I don't suppose you remember me?" and then panic rang through Connor. Oh god! This girl wasn't invented from the blunder with the anomaly, was she? Not realizing he stood there silent, the girl went on. "Guess not. Shame too, I'm rather amazing."

Connor laughed at the brunette's joke and put out a hand. "Connor Temple, though I'm sure you already knew that, yeah?"

The girl nodded with a grin and shook his hand. "Jess Parker. Very nice to meet you … again."

"We weren't really good mates were we? 'Cause if we were I think I'm missing out on a lot."

Jess smiled and shrugged. "We were mates, but no biggie. We can always be mates again. Now, can I ask you something?"

"Why not?"

"What all **_do _**you remember?" she chuckled. "And I say that like you have amnesia or something! I'm just curious I guess… Someone said they heard you and Abby talk about the ARC having more people and being bigger and…"

"Guess that's how you assumed I didn't know you?"

"That and the face you were giving me when I turned around." She giggled. "That look of sheer horror, you gave me that look the first day I met you and was sitting in your chair."

"Which, might I ask…?"

"I'm the field coordinator, Stephen suggested it before he … umm, well anyway, I was hired from my top expertise in computers and being able to cope with really weird things. Like dinosaurs for example."

Connor laughed again, he really liked this girl. She was funny, nice, understood computers apparently. He could see getting to really be friend with her. "Well to answer you previous question, it's actually not very clear what we know and don't know."

"Oh… Well I'm more than happy to help! I've read all the files -" she froze, seeing the sly grin that covered his face. "I … uhh, It's my job, of course."

"Course." Connor agreed with a playful expression. He had done the same, he couldn't blame her.

"Anyway, I know all the stories that are on a need to know basis. Like first! Let's backtrack, what event do you remember last?"

"Well since I'm not sure what events there were…"

"Oh, right! Sorry, my bad." She gave a blush and thought about it for a moment. "Are months taken from your memory or are things just … different?"

"I think things are just different, I know some things had to have happened the same since we came through the anomaly with the same task at hand – raptors and all."

"Well the anomalies could be the same but the things here at the ARC could have happened differently."

"True…"

"Example, Lester had a birthday and we had a surprise party for him!" Connor looked at her confused. "It was my idea, so I suppose it wouldn't have happened in your … err… let's call it timeline."

"Cutter did have a birthday, we tried to celebrate it but he refused."

"Oh, yes that happened!" she smiled. "You bought him a cupcake anyway."

Connor nodded and looked around for a seat. He spotted another swivel chair and pulled it over to him so he could sit as he chatted with Jess about what events did occur and what events didn't. He widely enjoyed talking to Jess, she was a sweet person. Too not Abby for his taste, but still very sweet; he looked forward to getting to know her.

"Oh, you and Abby's one year anniversary! Jenny made it a big deal and you and Abby had a fit over it, did that happen?" Connor paused. He thought she would have known, since Becker, Jenny and Cutter had already seen it for themselves. Jess saw the sudden shock on his face and once again spoke. "Have you not been together for a year in your timeline? Or did Jenny just not pursue the anniversary?"

"I … uhh, Jess …" he sighed, disappointed himself that they weren't together. "Abby and me never … we're just mates, in our timeline."

Jess's mouth practically fell open at the words. "Is that a joke?" Connor shook his head. "But you two-! You … god your living arrangements must be dreadful here now!"

Connor smiled at that being her first thought that came to mind. "Abby and I were flat mates before we started dated in this timeline. Same thing goes in our timeline, we just never started dating."

"But how could you **_not_** be dating? You two-! You're like an old married couple!"

Connor laughed at that comment, though Jess seemed serious about it. "So I've seen." She gave him a questioning look and did anything he could to get off that topic. He really didn't want to dwell on how he wasn't with Abby even more. "Oh, did Jenny and Cutter ever go out in this timeline?"

Jess snapped out of the sad thoughts of them being **_not_** together and gave him a smile, furthering his question of how they did have quite a few dates here and do still, now and then. Connor leaned back and grinned at all these stories, and although he did wish he was home, he was glad the hardest part was slowly starting to fade.

* * *

**_A/N: _****Next chapter will be more about what Abby did that day. Hope you enjoyed seeing some Jess! I thought it would be interesting having a Jess in this AU, since it did always make more sense for them to have a field coordinator in the first place. Plus I needed someone to be new and I didn't feel like I should invent my own character.**

**These chapters will be having them cope and learn about this AU, after that it will get into more of the story. Thanks for the Reviews! Keep them up!**


	5. The Discussion

**_A/N: _****This one's on the short side, after this the chapters will take a turn into how Abby and Connor got together in this timeline. Quite fun! I might post another one tonight so tomorrow we can get into the long chapters. **

* * *

****Abby walked out of the menagerie in a huff. She hardly had a job in there anymore, there were people in there at all corners doing research on the creatures and feeding the creatures and cleaning the creatures. They said she was charge of the section, and gave everyone their job positions. Apparently Abby preferred to do what she wanted in the menagerie whenever she could and then spent most her free time at Connor's side or in the field. She was angry not at the assistants, but at this Abby who left her work for research so she could go all goo-goo eyes at **_Connor Temple_**. It didn't seem very much like her at all, which is another reason why she was angry.

Abby stomped down the hall, seeing Lester in his offices glaring at her actions. She calmed herself down some and started to wonder where Connor was- _No! Abby Maitland! You're life does not revolve around Connor!_ Abby then realized most of it really did. She lived with him, she worked with him, she had lunch with him, she had dinner with him, and she watched movies with him. Connor was her best friend, another reason why she never told Connor how she felt… If Abby screwed things up, the life that did sadly revolve around him would become rather boring and depressing. It seems this Abby had already figured that out and instead of pushing him away, she did the smart thing.

Abby found herself staring out in the hub, seeing Connor be significantly friendly with some brunette at the ADD. They were just laughing over and over again about whatever story she was telling him. For some reason she couldn't find it in her to go and see what they found so hilarious so Abby snuck in the lab to see Cutter concentrating on another prediction for anomalies and Sarah looking deep into her research. She needed to discuss with him anyway.

She cleared her throat to get his attention and he looked at her with a warming smile. "Abby, how's the adjustment going?"

Abby raised her brows, widened her eyes, and leaned on the desk he was standing by at the time. "Could be better."

"Connor seems to be getting along nicely." Sarah said, bringing Cutter and Abby's their attention to the history fanatic herself.

"Yeah, well that's Connor. He finds fun in everything." Sarah let out a small laugh and looked back at her research. "Cutter, do you think Connor and I could go back…?"

"I'm afraid not, Abby. At least, I don't see how it would be possible. Besides, like I said last night, too risky."

"I feel wrong here, Cutter. I feel like we've been put in the shoes of people entirely different from us." She looked out the door, Connor and Jess still in her view. "You should see the flat."

Cutter laughed. "I have seen your flat, actually. I came by a few weeks back to feed Rex when you two were out for the weekend."

Abby wasn't sure which one was more shocking; Cutter in their flat, or Connor and her out on a holiday. "Did you see the washroom?"

Cutter laughed once again and shook his head. "No, I don't think I ever had the pleasure."

"Well, it's just as weird as the bedroom." She turned her body around to face the work he's been scribbling on, just so she didn't have to see Connor's flirting at the works. "It's like some old married couple lived in our flat then we moved in but they left all their belongings there. And yet, all the belongings are ours."

"Well, that does seem a tad confusing." Cutter teased her and she just gave him a playful glare. "You'll get used to it, you'll establish a better way of living like before and everything will get back to normal."

"It'll still feel like a year of my life has been taken away." she said. "You sure I can't go back?"

"Abby, you might as well take that thought out of your mind. Going back is just asking for more trouble, and we don't need more of that. I might have been teasing you last night, but I was also serious when I said you were lucky no one disappeared out of existence. Next time you go through and try to change whatever you changed, Connor just might **_not_** be here. Or I might not be here, or Jenny may not be here, or Sarah may not be here."

"Oh, please do keep me in existence." Sarah said with a chuckle.

"See, Sarah likes living."

Abby smiled but went back to topic. "But I feel like I'm useless when I just sit back and let it 'adjust'. How can you just do nothing?"

This time Sarah spoke. "Doing nothing is something, Abby. I know that sounds dumb, but letting us all continue living and you dealing with the stress and uncomfortable situation turns out to be much stronger than going through some anomaly without thoroughly thinking through your plan."

"She's right. And I think Connor knows that as well," Cutter said, gesturing his head to the very guy standing at the door. Abby swopped around to see Connor himself, clearly listening to the conversation.

"Jess… she isn't in our timeline." Connor said towards Cutter and Sarah. "This morning I was ready to come in here and beg to let us change this but… It's bigger than us, init?"

"It does appear to be that way." Connor gave a nod and silently walked away, being wrapped up in his thoughts. Abby looked back at Cutter and Sarah, tears wanting to let out again. She thought about staying and asking Cutter about some things like Stephen but she decided Connor needed her right now.

"Thank you, Cutter." She said with a smile and walked out after Connor who thankfully wasn't moving that fast to start with.

Sarah looked at Cutter with a smirk and he looked at her confused. "What?"

Sarah shrugged and her smirk grew into a grin. "Abby mentioned how it looked like an old married couple lived at their flat … just funny."

Cutter nodded, arms crossed across his chest and let out a chortle. "Maybe if we're lucky, they'll continue to live like that."

Sarah bellowed another laugh and smiled. "Yes, for all our sanities sake."

* * *

"Connor," Abby came behind him. He gave her a soft smile and looked back ahead of him. Abby wrapped her arm into his and their elbows stayed interlocked. "You okay?"

He nodded and stayed quiet for a little while, Abby letting him keep his silence as she always understood why. Once they took a turn around a random corner it dawned on him how long they'd been silent so he decided to speak. "We're stuck here, aren't we?" this time Abby nodded so he went on, taking a gulp and preparing for the worst. "Abs, you're not going to make me move out, are you?"

Abby looked at him shocked and stopped them in the middle of the hallway. "Course not, why would you even think that?"

"It's just… Our living arrangements are a bit out of control and I was 'fraid that you'd think it was best if I just found me own flat… It's your flat so if you want to do that then I understand it's just-"

"Connor," he looked at her in the eyes and she gave him reassuring smile. "It's **_our_** flat, not just mine."

"You did buy the flat yourself, Abs. I don't pay rent or anything."

"Well yeah, but for all we know here _we _bought it." She let go of his arm and rested her hand on his cheek, still giving a comforting smile. "You're not moving out. It'd be a rather boring place without you there."

"Bit lonely too, yeah?" he said, finally returning the smile as her hand fell back to his arm.

"Yeah, and then who would I have to pester about leaving their socks in the toaster oven all the time?" her expression then suddenly changed to a smug appearance. "Actually, now thinking 'bout it, leave those in there again and consider yourself homeless." She teased but Connor still whined.

"Awe, Abs! It's keeps 'em warm!"

* * *

Two guards sat at the coffee room that led out into the hall. They sat confused and one of them sighed. "I thought you said they **_weren't_** together."

"They aren't." the other replied.

"They looked pretty together to me." The first one debated.

"Mate, I don't know what you saw just then, but they clearly were not together."

The first one glared and stood up from the table. "Just you wait and see." And as they first one left the another yelled out to him.

"You wanna make a bet on that?"

* * *

_**Reviews are like Meatballs.**_

_**I love Meatballs. **_


	6. The Lunches

_**A/N:**_** This is like a filler chapter, but it's still a good chapter. Hope you like it! I've loved the Reviews, keep 'em up!**

* * *

After Abby and Connor discussed how they could make their living in the flat more comfortable they went their separate ways again, going back to work.

Abby returned to the menagerie and they explained to her that she could do whatever she wanted for the day. Spend time with the creatures, research the creatures, she could feed the creatures all day if she wanted. The assistants were there so if she was too tired to work from field work then she didn't have to, and it made it easier for her to enjoy the job and keep an eye on everything without having to spend every minute she had in there keeping up with the paper work and dirty work. She smiled at that and felt bad for over reacting before, maybe this Abby wasn't as bad as she thought. She seemed to be pretty smart.

Connor asked Cutter what he usually did now, since Jess was in charge of the ADD. Cutter explained that he still used the ADD whenever he wanted and when Jess took her breaks he took over for her – she really just was in charge of knowing the team mates and helping them through the field work, he did all the maintenance and repairs. Cutter also said that even though he could use the ADD whenever he wanted, Connor often spent his time helping him with experiments and worked on a lot of his inventions – like the Anomaly Closing Device. Hearing all of this it made him realize how much easier it really was, having someone else run the ADD. It helped him get other things done.

When lunch time rolled around Abby had a much happier perspective of this new ARC, new for her anyway, and she was happy to be working here. Even the menagerie was bigger though, which how any of that happened she would never ask for none of it seemed to make sense even _when_ Cutter went into to detail over it. Seeing the time she set aside the apples she had been feeding the mammoth – at least the anomalies didn't seem to change in this timeline – and she went towards the hub, hoping to have lunch with Connor.

"Abby!" someone called from behind. She swept around to see Jenny coming down the hall with a smile. _Oh no. _From what she gathered the timeline had somehow changed her relationship with **_everyone_**, not just Connor, and that included Jenny. Jenny seemed to act very fixed on her and Connor being together and she kept giving her these smiles whenever she saw her today like they were best friends. She and Jenny were friends, but best friends never would have been what she had called them.

"Jenny, haven't seen much of you today." She said with gracious welcome.

"Oh you know," she said as she fully approached her. "loads of paper work. Ready for lunch?"

Abby was struck by that question. Another thing Jenny and she never did. "I… I actually was going to ask Connor if he wanted to have lunch-"

"Oh don't be silly!" she interrupted. "You and Connor have lunch every day, and Friday is our day to have lunch, talking about how our week went."

"Oh…" Abby didn't realize that, but it didn't really shock her. The Abby from this timeline seemed a whole lot more sociable.

"I take it we didn't do lunch from whatever '_timeline' _you came from." She said, emphasizing the word "timeline".

"No, not really."

"Guess it's not that surprising, you were with Connor here."

"Why does Connor change our lunches?" Abby said with a questioning look.

Jenny gave a laugh and shook her head. "Connor was practical. He said we should have every Friday since you'd be spending the whole weekend with him anyway."

"**_Connor_**? Practical?"

"Well, I guess practical would be the wrong word… But he did plenty of things like that. He even brought up the idea of you getting assistants for the menagerie, when he saw how tiring it was becoming for you."

"We are talking about Connor, right? The same guy who rode around on a skateboard and randomly knocked on Lester's door and skated away before he saw him."

"He stopped most of those silly acts after I had even gotten here … I guess when he was injured by that Raptor. Perhaps it changed him."

Abby was even more confused now. "Raptor?"

Jenny laughed even more, seeing how things really **_did_** where she came from. "See Abby, _this_ is why we should have lunch. C'mon, we can discuss all of how different things happened."

Abby hesitated for a moment but then nodded, deciding it would be fun to learn about how different she and Connor could really be. "Why not?"

They turned down the hall, never stopping at the lab where Connor and Cutter had been working away and headed to the lunch room to have their lunch and talk about all the weird differences there were between timelines.

* * *

"Ow!" he quickly pulled away, feeling the stabbing wires and burning hot motherboard of the device in front of him scold his fingers.

"That's why people wear work gloves – protects the skin." Cutter commented, just to tease him.

Connor shook his head, too busy surveying the device to look at Cutter's smirk. "I got me gloves, they work just fine."

"Not if you're fingers are the ones being burned."

Connor jerked his hand away again, hissing a sound of pain and held in any cursing he wanted to speak. That one **_really_** hurt this time. "It's over heated," he finally admitted.

Cutter looked over, seeing the large device. "Then let it cool down."

He sighed with aggravation in his tone. "It won't cool down until I press the reset button."

"Then press the reset button." Cutter said like it was the simplest thing in the world, but he knew it wasn't that easy when he saw the annoyance in Connor's countenance.

"The reset button is past the motherboard which is what's over heated!" he laid his hand over his face and let out a groan.

Cutter kept a small smile on his face as he turned his stool to face the frustrated genius. "In any musical this situation would usually turn into a balled about how you shouldn't give up, but I suppose we're not in any musical."

Connor chuckled, brightening up a little. "Well I did fall into an alternate universe. I guess you never can tell what could happen, yeah?" Cutter laughed with him again and Sarah stood up from her chair with a funny expression.

"You both spend too much time together." She joked before leaving the room to use the loo. Connor once again sighed and stared back at the anomaly device.

"It's let it burn the flesh off me hands or let it get so hot it catches on fire." Cutter clapped his shoulder before giving the device a look and grabbed a pencil to poke through the small metal opening. He held the outside of it still and then let out a successful hum.

"There, all reset."

Connor nodded his head, tightening his lips and scrunching his brows in the process. "Or there's that way."

Cutter didn't feel the need to prove Connor's thoughtlessness anymore so he just decided to change the topic. "Why don't we go have some lunch?"

* * *

Abby and Jenny giggled to each other, talking about this and that. Jenny told her stories of Cutter and her dates and stories of how Connor and she out won them on many occasions of being more romantic than the other. She even brought up how much Becker seemed to fancy the field coordinator, Jess.

"Sarah and him had been sneaking around and one day you and Connor were looking for a place to have a quiet lunch and found them two!" Jenny told her.

"And this is Stephen?" Abby asked.

Jenny nodded. "We were all shocked once it came out. 'Course the relationship never was able to go too far… since Stephen's death."

"Connor and I's timeline, Stephen … he had passed before Sarah even came in the group."

"Really? How?"

Abby stopped to think about how to answer that, when sooner or later she just answer it with a simple, "Helen."

"Ah," Jenny nodded and before she could tell Abby how Stephen died here, Abby started in again.

"Jenny, this might come off … I don't know, just… you've been talking about how and Connor and I were together and…" she sighed, she didn't want Jenny to catch on that she had feelings for Connor but she wanted to know. So, so badly did she want to know. "How did Connor and I get together?"

Jenny smirked. "Well…"

* * *

Connor and Cutter came to the common room to have lunch, seeing Jenny and Abby visiting in the lunch room. Apparently there was also a coffee room and they walked past it, but it was full of soldiers and they preferred to have a quiet conversation that didn't have the word gun mentioned every two seconds. But one thing Connor had figured out was that this ARC was much bigger than the one Abby and Connor knew, much bigger.

They sat silent for a little while until Cutter started asking Connor about little things that were different, since he mentioned Jess wasn't from his timeline. He mentioned this and that, most of what Cutter already knew thanks to Abby, but he enjoyed hearing it from Connor nonetheless.

"How well did I know Becker here?" Connor asked.

Cutter grumbled to himself some thoughts and then shrugged. "Pretty well, we're all fairly close to him. He replaced Captain Ryan so he's been here for quite some time."

"Really? In our timeline he came in after Stephen's death, Sarah as well."

"Oh… so I suppose you wouldn't know him as well as you once did then." Seeing the sadness in Connor's eyes he felt bad for the lad, he didn't deserve such a change from everything because of him. It hurt him. "That's okay, though. You'll get to know him better in time."

Connor nodded as his thoughts came to another area of uncertainty. Him and Abby. "Professor," Cutter hummed a response as he checked the inside of his sandwich. Jenny had made it for him. "Would you mind telling me something?"

"I suppose not, what is it?" he replied, still looking at the sandwich's contents.

"It's … Could you tell me how Abby and I got together?"

* * *

_**Next chapter is called "The 'Together' Stories" and it gets pretty far into how Connor and Abby became a couple, also gives a view of how much this AU is different from there's and why. **_


	7. The Together Stories

**_A/N: _****This chapter goes in and out of flashbacks, hope you enjoy!**

* * *

"Where would you like me to start?" Cutter said with a smirk. Connor should probably be embarrassed but he was too anxious to find out if they were just completely different people then or if he had a chance still.

"I guess … well how **_did_** it start?"

* * *

"Nick was more on the up and up about how it started." Jenny informed. "He saw it from the start, actually. He just told me about it and sooner or later I started to see things."

Abby was even more curious. "'See things'?"

"Yeah, like you two would sneak off together or you'd be holding hands when no one looking. Or thought no one was looking."

"Why were we so secretive about it?"

"Couldn't tell you." She smiled. "Maybe it was fun? Or maybe you were afraid you'd be teased about it, or James would decide it wasn't appropriate." Seeing Abby nod and not want to push the conversation too far, Jenny continued. "The first time I noticed something was after Nick had assured me he saw you two kissing."

* * *

"It was the day the anomaly opened in that shopping center." Cutter began. "I know you mentioned that earlier, so that day did happen for you?"

Connor nodded. "Yeah, but nothing really happened or anything. You had been talking about Claudia, you brought the Raptor through the anomaly, oh and I shot Abby in the leg with a tranquilizer gun."

Cutter laughed. "You never shot Abby when we went, but Claudia had just disappeared. Were you ever chased by a Raptor?"

Connor thought about it then slowly nodded. "Yeah, guess so. Only remember because I lost me slushy!"

Cutter once again laughed and went on. "I guess you got chased by things a lot to remember one specific one so clearly but in our timeline, it didn't just chase you."

"Eh?"

_ "Connor! Connor, c'mon! __**Hurry**__!" Cutter and Stephen rushed to the exit as Abby stayed beside it, seeing the door slowly close. Connor ran for the exit, them all seeing him go as fast as he could. Cutter noticed a scratch across Abby's arm and then saw the rabid like Raptor chasing Connor with all its strength. _

_ Seeing out even more he watched him throw the slushy at the creature and at the attempt the Raptor caught up to him, already being fairly close behind, and caught Connor by the leg as the metal door touched the ground. "No!" Abby screamed as it stayed secured, closed off from where Connor was taken._

_ Cutter and Stephen were in shock. It happened so quickly, they had no idea Connor had even ever left. "Abby…" he spoke. "Are you okay?"_

_ Abby stood silent, not even nodding to answer his most asked question. Stephen gave him a look, seeing how devastated Abby was, and he reached for her arm but she jerked away and leaned against the metal wall. _

_ "What happened?" Stephen questioned in a gentle voice. Abby looked up at them and looked back down, hating to look them in the eye._

_ "Connor was being an idiot and … he went to go…" she took a deep breath, obviously hating to talk bad about him even if she was angry. "The Raptor saw us and almost … it almost seemed to recognize us so it attacked. Connor was out of its sight so it attacked me first… He grabbed something and hit it across the head to get its attention towards him and … he told me to run for the door." Though she wouldn't look at them Cutter could see the tears in her eyes. She just lost a good friend, for Abby it could have even been more. _

_ "All right, Stephen why don't you bring Abby to the bowling alley, I'll get a tranquilizer gun… try to find this thing." Cutter told them and when Stephen reached for Abby again she pulled away another time and came closer to Cutter._

_ "No, I'm going with you." She inhaled a deep breath and looked at the blood on her hands. "Connor could still be alive."_

_ "Abby … Raptor's eat their prey in seconds-"_

_ Cutter looked at Stephen with a head shake and placed his hand on Abby's shoulder. "You should go with Stephen, it's safer. If Connor's alive I'll bring him to you right away, okay?"_

_ Abby thought about it for a minute then shook her head. "No, I want to see him. He's alive, I know he is."_

_ Stephen almost spoke but held his tongue and rubbed the back of his neck, trying to think of what they possibly could do to keep her safe and keep her away from this. Abby gave them an odd expression and sighed. "Fine."_

_ Stephen and Cutter both looked astonished at this sudden change of mind. "What happened to wanting to see him?" Stephen said with suspicion. Abby looked at him with a shrug._

_"Things change." She looked at Cutter intently. "When you find him, keep him alive, yeah?"_

_Cutter didn't know what to say, finding her decision out of character. He just nodded and headed the other way as Abby and Stephen walked for the bowling alley. _

_Cutter walked the way of the hall that Abby had closed off, following the track of blood that lead to who knows where. There wasn't a lot of it to presume Connor dead, so that was good at least. He'd really hate to lose Connor, he was a good kid and he had great potential, and he rather enjoyed his company, but he doubted his survival. No matter what he wasn't going to panic and break down until he was sure, for Abby's sake at least. After he'd been following the trail for probably fifteen minutes the walky-talky burst out with Stephen's irritated voice._

_"Nick," he heard from the small handheld device._

_Cutter pressed the button down to talk. "Something happen?"_

_"It's Abby." Stephen's voice came through again._

_Cutter felt a reign of terror run through him. Not three people in one day, he couldn't do it. "What happened?"_

_"Well, nothing yet." He heard him make some sort of sigh on the other side. "She's disappeared."_

_"What do you mean she's disappeared? You were supposed to be watching her, Stephen!"_

_"I called Lester to tell him about Connor and I turn around, she's gone! I'm sorry I wasn't expecting to be chasing a Maitland along with a Raptor tonight."_

_"No, no… it's not your fault, I suppose. What do you think happened? She ran off?"_

_"Well, my tranqu gun is missing so I would assume for the moment that she went to go find Connor on her own."_

_Cutter groaned. "You stay there, in case of another incursion or something. I should be finding the Raptor and hopefully not Connor and Abby's remains soon."_

_"Good luck," the walk-talky chirped through one last time. Without answering Stephen again he followed the trail of blood again, finally coming to a doorway that led through to a stopping point of the blood. Pointing the gun out in front of him he looked around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. He came to a corner, about to peer around when his eyes took sight of the Raptor. It was unconscious with four tranquil darts in its side. There was only one obvious answer to that; Abby. _

_"I think you got it, Abs." Cutter froze. That was Connor's voice! How could he possibly be-? He wasn't going to even ask, because he was alive. Before coming out from behind the corner he saw Abby sitting next to Connor who was somehow was alive and looked like he would be able to walk, if not tonight. Talk about a miracle. "It won't be waking up anytime soon."_

_He couldn't see Abby's face but he could see a crease of a smile from the side of her cheek. "I'm sorry I shot it so much."_

_"Don't be, I'd probably do the same, yeah?" he sat up some and grunted. "Me leg hurts."_

_She chuckled. "I wonder why?"_

_"You gonna call Cutter in? I imagine they thought me dead, under the circumstances and all."_

_"Yeah… they did." He saw the worry in Connor's eyes but it was covered seconds later by the pain from his legs._

_"I'm losing quite a bit of blood, Abs."_

_He saw her head nod, pulling out her phone. She must have left her walky-talky behind. He supposed he probably should come out now if Abby were to be calling him but before he did he heard a sob suddenly and looked to see Abby holding onto Connor's shirt. "I'm okay, I promise."_

_"I know, it's just…" she pulled away, Connor wiping tears from her face. "You almost got yourself killed for being an idiot! Why…"_

_"I guess getting' a slushy wasn't the wisest idea, eh?"_

_"Not that- that was you being you…" she let out a deep breath. "You shouldn't risk your life for me like that. It was stupid and-!" she let another breath out and pulled out her phone, just staring at it._

_"I'd say m'sorry, but to be honest Abs, I'm not." Then silence hit. Okay, they were silent, that meant he could go and not be interrupting anything. That's good. Cutter took a sharp turn past the corner to see Connor and Abby both doing more than just being quiet – they were kissing. Not knowing what to do as they obviously didn't see him for quite some time he finally leapt back behind the corner and waited for them to finish, hating things to become awkward between the three of them. After Cutter leaned against the wall for another thirty seconds or so he heard Abby saying she should call Cutter and he took that as his cue to come out before she blew his cover. _

Connor looked at Cutter confused, not knowing what to think about his story. "So… then we were just together after that?"

Cutter shook his head, smiling at Connor's reaction to the story. "No, it took you two a while to finally come out in the open about it."

"How long?"

* * *

"Cutter told me his story about you running after Connor and saving his life." Jenny said, giving any detail she could remember. "He overheard some of your conversation and then to his surprise, you suddenly were kissing. After he told me he said he told Stephen, but Stephen was too stubborn to believe it. He said you two didn't like each other like that so Stephen kept out of most of the conversations about it for a while until we saw something was up about him."

Abby furrowed her brow. "What do you mean?"

"Well, we noticed how awkward you two were around each other for about a week. You even came to the ARC separately every now and then, and then one day you were fine. Normal flirting, normal conversations, everything seemed normal but one thing. You two kept disappearing during work hours and when an anomaly came in you just pop up out of nowhere, sometimes coming from different directions but not always." A smile grew on her face when she thought about this. "One day I was discussing to Cutter about how I didn't find it that odd, but Cutter was completely lost at why you would be going off all the time. Stephen then randomly came in the conversation, which he never did, and assured us it was nothing."

"He assured you it was nothing? Why?"

"Well after that I kept drilling Stephen to tell us what he knew but he kept quiet for a while, until one day he was talking to Cutter about you two. I heard some of the conversation, he said he walked in on you when you were in the menagerie and you were kissing again. It was right after the long awkward weeks, and he acted like he knew more but I wasn't in the room to hear it. But, to after another few days of nudging him, I finally got him to tell me."

_Stephen walked down the hall, trying to find something to do. He was bored out of his mind – he never had anything to do at the ARC but clean guns and help put creature back through anomalies. Sometimes he wondered why he even spent time here at the ARC when he wasn't in the field. _

_He walked past the menagerie and decided to go ahead and visit Abby, since he had nothing better to do. Maybe he could help out with the creatures – or, animals around Abby. He walked in, looking around to see desks full of paper work and pins full of large creatures like mammoths then smaller creatures like some young Barylambda or Saber Tooth Tigers. One of the baby Barylambda's caught his attention, clawing at the cage to get out. It was adorable … if only the poor thing was home. He started to inch towards the cage when he heard Abby's voice. She was speaking to someone. _

_Having no idea why he hid to a corner, feeling weird to even be in here, not to mention interrupting someone – it sounds like – personal conversation. It didn't take long to recognize Connor as the other voice and he stayed even quieter. He knew they'd been seen kissing; he really didn't want to get mixed up in some 'what are we' business. His eyes just stared at the door, looking for a way out._

_"Yup… that was … fun…" Connor muttered, hearing that they were still in the awkward stage of things. _

_"I'm sure… Listen, Connor, I've got work to do…" Abby trailed off. Lord did he not want to be here right now._

_"Right, yeah I know – Cutter just told me to rest me leg and I was getting restless resting it at the ADD and all so I thought I'd come see what you were doing." He let out a sigh. "I'll leave." He spoke with some grunts; he was probably moving his leg around. He could walk on it but moving it a whole lot hurt him more than he let on._

_"No, I… You can stay in here. No point in going if you're going to be bored somewhere else too, I suppose." But by then Connor must have been standing because he heard him limping around. Somehow his leg wasn't broken, but the wounds were pretty deep. He didn't hear anything for a while so he started to step out when he saw Connor turning towards him and Stephen panicked and hid behind another corner where he now faces them. _

_"Abby…" Stephen wanted to groan but he just rolled his eyes. Here it comes, he could tell from Connor's tone of voice. "Can I ask you a question?" Abby looked at him a bit worried but shrugged it off as an answer. He was quiet after that. Just say it, Connor. You won't get anywhere if you don't just ask her. "Why did you kiss me?"_

_Abby froze. She should have seen this coming; it wasn't any shocker that Abby was the one that kissed Connor. Connor didn't have the moxie to kiss her first, plus it was Abby who was so scared for his life. But yet she looked terrified at that question. "Connor… I…" she kept turned from him, acting like she was busy with whatever was in her hands. "I don't know."_

_Stephen didn't even believe that. "I have a hard time believing that, Abs."_

_"Believe what you will."_

_"Okay, I believe you're lying." At that Abby swung around to face him, now seeing how close he was to her. _

_"I'm not lying, Connor."_

_"Maybe not to me."_

_"Who else would I be lying to?"_

_Stephen inwardly sighed. Why did he have to be present for this? "Yourself would be a starter, wouldn't it?" Connor said somewhat loud. Abby paused, running her hands through her bangs nervously and looking to the floor. "M'sorry, I didn't mean to yell I just…" she still made no response. "I… Maybe I should move out of that flat."_

_"What?" Abby looked shocked._

_"It's probably for the best anyways, and seeing how things are now I'd hate to oppose on your anymore." He was right, if Abby was going to insist on denying her feelings._

_"Connor, you don't have to do that."_

_"Yeah, well that's my decision then." Connor looked crushed, but he also looked fed up with this whole charade Abby had been playing. _

_"Connor…" she sighed. "I don't want you to move out."_

_"No?" Connor said more like he was trying to prove something, if anything. "Then what do you want?"_

_"I...!" she looked back down at the floor, fidgeting with her hands. She really didn't seem to know what she wanted. "I'm sorry." She mumbled to him._

_"Don't be…"_

_"I've messed everything up, just because of one __**stupid **__impulse."_

_"I quite liked that stupid impulse meself." Abby gave him a smile before looking back down at the same spot. Stephen wanted to just go die right now. Why of all places did he decide to come in here? He pressed his head to the wall and waited for something else to happen, but they were just standing there. _

_After a few minutes he finally heard Connor speak again, but he hardly could make out what he said. "Ya know what?"_

_She looked at him with a soft smile. "No, what?" and that was the last words they spoke before Connor crushed his lips against hers. Bout bloody time! Now he could sneak away without them seeing him. He waited for a minute, making sure they weren't going to break apart and spot him. He noticed Abby deepening the kiss and when Connor pressed her against the counter he knew he was safe. He tip-toed away but when the Barylambda made a loud noise as it saw him leaving Abby and Connor swung around to see Stephen frozen in his steps. _

_"…Stephen, mate, how long you been in here?" Connor asked as all three of them stayed red in the face._

_He turned around and sighed. "Too long for my sanity to keep."_

Abby laughed, just thinking of Stephen and how much he must have hated that. "So after a while he told everyone?"

"No, apparently that had happened a week after the Raptor attack and when he told us it had been about a month."

"And we … that Connor and Abby went out and told everyone? Once Stephen had told you two."

"No," Jenny snickered. "Not yet."

* * *

_**Hope you enjoyed it! Will be continued with Ch. 8, "The Excuses That Lead to a Ring". Now that's exciting! haha! **_

_**Reviews are like Pistachios.**_

_**I love Pistachios. **_


	8. The Excuses That Lead To a Ring

**_A/N: _****This chapter continues on with the "together" stories so it goes in and out of flashbacks. This one brings some more Jenny/Cutter into things. Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Abby and Jenny weren't able to finish the story when Sarah sat with them, Sarah didn't mind talking about the story of how they got together but Stephen was a main part of it at that moment and Jenny was afraid it would hit a nerve. She took the death pretty hard.

Once they finished and talked to Sarah for quite some time they realized they really should return to work, but Abby remembered the lovely assistants that were paid for her to take advantage of so she stayed with Jenny and had her finish their story.

"Okay, so he saw us – I mean… a different Connor and me in the menagerie." Abby reminded. Jenny nodded and thought for a moment before continuing on to what happened next.

"Well Stephen told us but he had been sworn to secrecy and felt somewhat bad about telling us after so Nick and I had to keep our mouths shut until he could convince you two to come out with it."

"What did he do?" Abby asked curious. Jenny looked around ready to answer when she suddenly burst out laughing. "What?"

"I just never imagined telling you the story of how you got together with Connor! It's definitely a … change to say the least."

Abby laughed, understanding how weird it must be for them as well, almost like they're explaining their friends with amnesia their entire past. She knew how weird it was for her, but for them it didn't even dawn on her. "I feel like you're telling me a dream or something," she commented. "Telling me a story about me that _for me_ never happened."

Jenny nodded and then shrugged. "Well, it did. And you know, though it may not go down the same way, it could still happen. If you wanted it to, that is."

Abby narrowed her eyes and leaned back in the chair. "What could?"

"You and Connor, of course!"

Abby let out a sudden laugh and leaned forward to rest her elbows on Jenny's desk. "Out of everyone, you seem to be determined we have feelings for each other."

"Abby, can you honestly tell me you'd be anxiously waiting for more of **_how _**it happened if you didn't have feelings for Connor in the first place?"

Abby blushed, knowing it was true. She did have strong feelings for Connor but that wasn't the point. "What did Stephen do to make us come out with it?"

She rolled her eyes. She knew Abby would deny and avoid it. She was always the same old Abby. Jenny tried to recollect the first moment of Stephen's pursuit in relief and then nodded remembering. "I think he started after Mer-Creatures from the future came into our paths."

* * *

Connor and Cutter sat at the common room, knowing whatever research they were up to could be finished at any time, and talked about how Stephen convinced the two of them to stop keeping everything a secret.

"Well it started around the Mer-creature incident- that happened for you two…?"

"Oh, yeah, Abby was taken by the creatures, went through the anomaly and ended up in the future..." Connor left out the most valued part that he chose to forget. "Sexy stuff."

"Abby and you never went through the anomaly, actually she was almost taken but the creature came up and you pulled her down before it could take her. We got away just in time… And you weren't very happy with me about bringing you in danger like that. We did find where the creatures were keeping that boy, Abby dove in to save him and there was a moment there where it didn't look like she was going to make it out of the water. Before that though, you two really just snuck around…"

_ "Stephen," Jenny came over to Stephen with an annoyed expression. "Where are Connor and Abby? There's an anomaly and no one's seem them since lunch."_

_ Stephen looked at her with his hands propped to his hips and shrugged. "How am I supposed to know?"_

_ "Fine, whatever you say." She turned away and Stephen rushed up the stairs to go find the two missing love birds. "Stephen," she called, Stephen swooped around trying to act normal but she just smirked. "When you find them, tell them there's an anomaly – Lester's orders."_

_ Stephen nodded and casually walked down the hall, knowing exactly where they would be hiding. There was a back room in the menagerie that not many people knew of and they hid back there for lunch and would stay gone for hours; it also tended to be sound proof._

_ "Connor, Abby!" he yelled, walking in the animal's sanctuary. He peered around, seeing them nowhere in sight, and came to the hidden door with a sigh. With three loud knocks he pounded on the door shouting through, "Open up!" then turned the knob and entered to see Connor and Abby sitting side by side, Abby's leg stretched out over his so she could face him and their hands intertwined together. _

_ "I know you miss us and all, mate. But you really should wait around, yeah?" Connor teased him and Stephen ignored his comment._

_ "If you couldn't hear from this safe room, there's an anomaly."_

_ "What?" Connor said upset. "I thought you said the light up there was for anomalies?" he asked Abby._

_ Abby frowned. "That's what Lester said… Must not be hooked up?"_

_ "Guess I don't ever remember hooking the ADD up to any of the safe rooms."_

_ "Ya know if you two just stopped sneaking around and keeping this all a secret then you wouldn't be missing anomalies." Stephen irksomely reminded them as they got up and gathered their things._

_ "Stephen, we've already talked about this." Abby said with a soft smile. _

_ "Yeah, don't want people to start getting weird around you and you'd hate if Lester decided it was against ARC regulations." He said, quoting them to the very word – he'd heard it enough to know. They all walked out into the main center of the menagerie and Connor gave a smile as well._

_ "Right, thanks, mate. I know it's a bit annoying at times, having to act like nothing's going on."_

_ Stephen sighed. "Honestly, guys, I'm not entirely certain they're convinced anymore."_

_ "What's there to suspect?" Abby said with a laugh as Connor helped her with her jacket. "It's not like we hold hands in public or anything."_

_ "Well, that often anyway." Abby gave Connor a playful glare and they all headed down the hall and towards the hub. _

_ "There you two are," Becker came beside them suddenly, making them all slightly jump. "I see that Stephen found you."_

_ "Just in the menagerie, Abby was giving me a lesson in how to feed prehistoric lizards properly." Connor lied, coming off quite convincing. Since when did Connor learn how to lie?_

_ Abby grinned at him and looked back at Becker to go along with the excuse. "He's not a very good student."_

_ "Course, and that explains why you didn't show up when the anomaly alert went off?" Connor and Abby stayed silent and Becker just laughed. "Cutter and Jenny went along without us, he told me to wait for the three of you to reappear. We have orders to head to the anomaly sight, it's under water I think? Something like that, need to be there as soon as possible."_

_ "ASAP, gotcha." Connor gave a nod and headed through to the hub, Abby staying at Stephen's side nervously. _

_ "I'm sorry for causing a delay, Becker. I guess we were too caught up in the lesson." She said. Becker shook his head, his face serious but obvious he had no grudge against them. Their excuses actually amused him if anything. _

_ "Understandable."_

* * *

"Even Becker knew?" Abby said with a smile.

"Oh yes, everyone but Lester had put the pieces together by then. No one but Stephen and Cutter had witnessed anything of course, except for the looks you gave each other and the every now and then hand holding. Becker had hinted later on that he had seen something himself, but it could have simply been you two sneaking off into the safe room."

"We weren't very convincing then?"

"Oh, no! You two were very convincing! Which is exactly why at least I knew something was up. You two seemed too determined and certain nothing had been going on between you. It was too… put together."

"I see."

"And **_that's _**what Cutter and I were discussing the following day when Stephen told us about what had happened."

_"You know what excuse Abby told me yesterday when I asked what they were doing to not hear the anomaly alert?" Jenny said as she neared over beside Cutter who was going over the handheld anomaly detector and trying to fix it since Connor had disappeared for that part of the day._

_ "They had gone to the back, outside the ARC, for Connor to show Abby his new invention?"_

_ Jenny smiled. "No, that was the anomaly before this one. Yesterday she looked at me without any hesitation and said 'I was giving Connor a lesson in proper lizard treatment and habitat.' And when I said it didn't explain not hearing the anomaly, she completely avoided the question and mentioned something about the sounds she had heard from the water."_

_ Cutter laughed and turned to Jenny. "Their excuses seem to be becoming less creative, don't they?"_

_ "They must have learned that from you." She provoked._

_ "Me?"_

_ "Yes, you have come up with the most ridiculous excuses at times."_

_ "I-! I do no such thing, I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."_

_ "Nick, would you like to have coffee tonight?"_

_ "Well, I… I do have this handheld device to fix and-" he looked up to see her smug demeanor and he smiled at her. "Actually, I would love to, Jenny."_

_ Jenny grinned. "Good. Now you should teach those skills to Connor and Abby."_

_ Cutter chuckled. "I have a feeling it wouldn't do much for them. They would still lie about whereabouts."_

_ "And I don't see why!"_

_ "Because they can. Don't worry, they'll tell everyone sooner or later – that is if it doesn't end before they can."_

_ Jenny looked scared at that statement. "What do you mean?"_

_ "Stephen said Abby has been angry at Connor ever since yesterday. According to him they have been arguing off and on all day." He tried to hide in a smile. "Even one loudly instrumented argument in front of Connor's tech volunteers." And at that Stephen walked in the lab, his arms tightly folded over his chest and his brows bunched together to imply the unpleasant state of his mood. _

_ "Oh, what is it now?" Jenny said more worried than she should as she tried to come off irate. _

_ Stephen let out a puff of breath. "They're still fighting." _

_ "Not much to my surprise." Cutter added._

_ "No, Cutter has predicted three more arguments – now two – and one last blow out before either ending it all together or admitting their feelings for each other."_

_ "Hold it," Jenny put up a finger as to command no one to speak. "I thought they had been dating, just in secret. What do you mean 'admit their feelings'?"_

_ "Abby's too stubborn to say it and Connor's too afraid she won't say it because she doesn't mean it and - do I really have to go on about this? I have to hear Connor's ramblings about their relationship enough as it is."_

_ "No, no. Suppose not, 'specially now that I understand the arguing. Or, at least some of it."_

_ "Oh no, they're arguing because Connor __**did **__say it, then he said he denied ever saying it because of how Abby acted towards it." _

_ Jenny didn't say anything but just burry her forehead into her palm and gently shake her head. "Oh, Connor."_

_ "I hope this argument wasn't in front of another assistant." Cutter remarked, hiding the smirk on his face. Stephen did smile when he replied back._

_ "No, I wasn't even present for this one. I just walked past and heard the high volume arguments. This time they seem to be actually yelling at each other for the reason their yelling, so I guess that's good."_

_ "They weren't before?" Jenny asked._

_ Cutter let out his smirk at the thought. "The first fight was about how Connor didn't put milk on the grocery list."_

_ "That was very foolish of Connor." Jenny said with a snicker. "This time they were yelling at each other about Connor denying it?"_

_ "I heard something about how she was being overdramatic and wouldn't tell him anything, and how he was being heartless and wouldn't leave her alone." _

_ Jenny nodded. "Now that's a more valid fight."_

_ "I suppose, if you say any argument is in a way … valid."_

_ "Well everyone fights, Nick. There's come a point when the arguments have reason or the arguments are just made out of anger and lashing out on nothing but that anger."_

_ "Well if people just controlled that anger it wouldn't be much of a problem."_

_ "Are you saying Helen and you never fought?" _

_ "Oh no, we fought. I'm critiquing my faults as well."_

_ "Oh, because if you fight then it's a fault - like you're flawed if you yell at someone."_

_ "Well, yes in a manner of speaking!"_

_ Jenny was about to shout something back when Stephen groaned and waved his hands through the air with an 'OKAY!' and they both looked at him, taken aback from his outburst. _

_"There's no reason to prove Nick's point and there's no reason to make __**me **__prove Nick's point, I've had enough of people proving his point! So if you two are going to continue this debate I'm going to go clean out my guns as I decide who I'm going to shoot first with them! I really doubt you two want me to decide to shoot whoevers in earshot since you would only be five feet away from where I usually am, so I would suggest we all just shut the bloody hell up." Stephen walked out with a scowl and the two of them waited there, not sure what to say, and when Jenny was about to bring their argument back up they heard Stephen cock his gun and Jenny scurried out of the lab, not wanting to see Lester have to put an ARC teammate in prison for shooting the Professor. _

* * *

"So the fighting stopped?" Connor asked with great expectations of the end of this story.

Cutter gave a nod. "And it when it did, it was rather … off, which was a good thing in the end."

"What do you mean?"

_"Nick," Jenny said, coming up behind him with her different dress for the day and her hair all up in a new hair style–_

"Wait, I'm going to stop you right there. I just realized something, you said Abby and I started this after the shopping center slash raptor anomaly, yeah?"

"Yes."

"But Jenny didn't come to work until after Claudia Brown, which you said was the same day as the Raptor anomaly."

"That's right."

"So why did you and she become so close so quickly? In our timeline you two didn't really like each other at first. You called her Claudia too often."

"Really? Well I did call her Claudia now and then which she didn't like, and Jenny and I had our arguments but she was very fixed on the two of you and wanted to know about it so from the beginning I would tell her. At first I think it was because she was worried for work, and how you being together might get out of hand, but later I think she got to where she just wanted you together. She became the Mother Hen later on, if you think about it."

"So… you two bonded over me and Abby?"

Cutter laughed. "I suppose you can call it that, yeah."

"Well, go on then. Don't have all day, do I?"

Cutter rolled his eyes and continued on with his story.

_"Have you seen them today?" Jenny asked with a smirk. _

_ Cutter thought about it then shook his head. "I can't say I have, is it bad?" _

_ She shook her head back. "They're fine."_

_ "What do you mean? That's sooner than I thought…"_

_ "Nick, not everything is science and predictions. Besides, they live together; I doubt you put that into consideration." Cutter looked back down at his project and she sighed. "Not going to ask then?" _

_ Cutter looked at her with a smug expression and handed her piece of paper. "I don't have to ask what happened, Stephen already told me."_

_ "In a note? Why?"_

_ "Because Lester was giving us a speech about not listening and doing our work so Stephen got bored and wrote down what happened."_

_ Jenny cracked a smile. She couldn't help it, it was funny. "I don't blame him. Why wasn't I given this?"_

_ "I forgot last night. I was having such a lovely date." _

_ Jenny grinned at him. "I was too."_

_ "By the way, did I tell you how amazing you look today?-"_

_ "Please stop, I already had to hear this from Connor and Abby all morning." Jenny and Cutter turned to see Stephen with a look of defeat. He slouched down into a chair and groaned._

_ "What's new with the two today?" Jenny asked curiously._

_ "The two," Stephen started, calling them by what they've been calling them the past month. "Made up and are all happy-go-lucky in love. Yay."_

_ "Oh Stephen, you know you'd be upset if it didn't end well between them." Jenny assured._

_ "I think you're getting you and I confused."_

_ Jenny eyed Cutter and he spoke up. "Why such a grump this morning, Stephen? Nightmare of anomalies eating you up, are they?" he said jokingly and Stephen sat up and sighed._

_ "I've been trying to convince them to go out in the open with it for almost an hour now." _

_ Jenny looked excited. "And…?"_

_ "They just keep calling each other 'luv'." _

_ "What did they __**decide**__, Stephen?" she pursued. He sighed again and stood up._

_ "They said they'd think about it."_

_ Cutter was about to say something when he saw Connor and Abby coming out in the hub for the first time in weeks. Jenny grinned and sighed in relief._

_ "'Bout bloody time." Stephen muttered as they watched Connor and Abby coming out openly hand and hand, Connor leading her to the ADD as they giggled about something. Jenny walked out of the lab, Cutter following, and Connor hollered at him. _

_ "Professor, did you hear?" _

_ Cutter smiled at Jenny. "What would that be, Connor?"_

_ "I got meself a girlfriend!" he bragged, looking at Abby who was beaming back at him as well._

_ Cutter chuckled, Jenny keeping in her laugh but not keeping in her smile. "Oh, we know."_

Connor smiled to himself when Cutter finished his story. Cutter watched his expressions change throughout the entire time he talked about them two and he couldn't help but make another prediction. He had heard some rumor earlier this afternoon about a bet, and he was almost tempted to put some money in it himself.

Connor was quiet, until he saw Becker walk in the room to open the fridge and grab his lunch when Connor decided to invite him over. "Hilary!" Becker looked at him with a glare. "Care to join us? We've already finished our lunches, but you're free to eat here."

Becker didn't answer and Cutter laughed. "Becker eats lunch with Jessica."

"Jess? Well, well! Good luck with that, mate! Hope she makes you happy."

Becker didn't say anything. He just slowly pulled out his lunch from the fridge and awkwardly walked out of the common room. Cutter looked at him and shook his head. "Wha'? It's payback for what he did to Abby and me this morning."

Cutter didn't even want to ask. He just laughed and nodded, letting Connor babble on about whatever he felt necessary. It turns out Connor Temple really never changes after all.

* * *

Jenny finished up the story with a 'the end' and Abby smiled. It was a sweet story, and she really did wish it had happened, but she knew she shouldn't dwell on the past. Not just the past for that matter, the alternate past.

But she noticed, when Jenny ended with her quick saying, it came off almost like she was saying it to hide the truth. She didn't really understand why she would act like that and it made her even more curious when Jenny glanced at her worrisome and shot her eyes back to her papers.

"Jenny…"

"Oh all right!" she blurted out before Abby could even nag her. "I'll tell you the _real_ ending. But I warn you, it might make things even more awkward between you and Connor."

"Why?"

"Well… You said the other night how I was acting like you two were some married couple?"

Abby narrowed her eyes. "Yeah…?"

"Well, that wouldn't be a hundred percent true…"

"Jenny…!" Abby this time was starting to lose her patience. What was she going on about?

"I'm getting to it, all right! It's just … a week ago, before you two went through the anomaly… Connor bought something."

"Is there a reason why you're telling me about Connor's grocery habits, Jenny?" she said sarcastically and Jenny sighed.

"He bought an engagement ring." And Abby's eyes grew big.


	9. The Proposal

**_A/N: _****This chapter comes to be another shorter one, sorry! **

**I'd like to devote this chapter to Cehsja and her story "The Kissing Game" and "Becker Likes Facebook" because she, without realizing it, game me inspiration of where to go with this chapter.**

* * *

Abby went home that day speechless. Connor seemed pretty giddy about something, so that was good because it brought Abby the opportunity to let him ramble and her just nod. She wasn't in the mood for talking, especially to Connor who apparently… She inwardly sighed.

Why did Jenny have to tell her this stuff? She could have just kept quiet! Apparently Connor and Abby had been engaged for almost an entire week before jumping through the anomaly that led them to the fate that had them changing it in an Alternate Timeline.

Abby wondered what would have happened if the Abby and Connor from this timeline never jumped through, if they had for some reason decided it was too risky or if the soldiers drove faster to the anomaly sight. Would that make Connor and Abby jump through an anomaly that came out in the end with two Connor and Abby's? No, she stopped herself and reminded her that the only reason this happened is because they went through and changed the past, they were the same people, it wasn't two different worlds it was just whatever they did changing their timeline. They were the same Connor and Abby, they just had different memories for pretty much an entire year.

She decided to stop thinking about it all together. It got way too confusing for her to even think about it anymore. She realized that Connor had stopped with his rambling while she was in the midst of her thinking and it was silent now. She looked at him and smiled, but he just gave her an odd look and opened his mouth to speak.

"Abs, what's wrong?" he asked looking noticeably worried.

Abby frowned, still looking in front of her due to driving. "What'd you mean?"

"I mean, I asked you what sounded good for dinner three times and you just stayed silent, then you randomly look at me and smile like you never heard me."

"Oh, geesh, Connor I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stop listening to you. I just..." She exhaled and tried to glance at him while watching the road.

"I don't blame you for not listening. Honestly, I probably stop listening to me most of the time. But you seem more distracted by driving than usual, what's bothering you?"

"Still adjusting, I guess." Connor eyed her and she knew he wasn't falling for it. "Just caught up in thought is all, I'm fine Connor! I promise, 'kay?"

He shook his head and leaned it back to the chair, putting up with the silence she inadvertently caused again. She take a few looks at him in those long, eerie minutes then finally she let it out. "What if I told you something Jenny told me today?" Connor crooked his head to her, still leaned back on the seat.

"Something I find interesting, yeah?"

Abby smiled. "Yeah, something you'd definitely find … interesting."

"I'm listening. M'good at that, you see." He teased her and she flashed him a humorous glance and went on.

"It's sorta… weird, though."

"Ah, yeah, unlike our jobs or lives for example." Connor said sarcastically. He didn't usually go with the sarcastic comments so when he did she often laughed more than expected. "Abs, what is it? You've got me curious now!"

Abby slanted her mouth and bit her lip in doubt. She could just lie to him about it, but she felt he probably should know. He'd probably take it better than she did anyway. She realized how close they were to the flat so she waited until they parked into the parking lot to pull out a bag with the stone inside. She tossed it in Connor's lap and he looked at her perplexed, and his perplexity increased when he opened the bag to see an engagement ring.

"I'm flattered Abs, but I don't it'll fit." He said with a brow raised. Abby slapped his arm and grabbed the bag back into her grasp. "Whose is that anyway?"

Abby hesitated again. This was probably a really bad idea. Start from the beginning, it'll ease him up better. "Jenny was keeping it," she started. No, no. Bad way to start it.

"Okay, so its Jenny's…?"

"No, no. It's not Jenny's, she was just keeping it."

"Abs, you're really not explaining this very well. Why do you have what looks like an engagement ring in a bag that Jenny was keeping for someone?"

"She was returning it to its owners, Connor."

Connor gaping his mouth to speak when his face froze. He looked down at the bag and back at her, he wasn't for sure but he felt like his mouth was inched open as he never did close it back and he didn't even know what to say. "I guess I should have explained that better, you're right. Jenny was telling me today of how the other Connor and Abby got together, and in the end told me we apparently had been, well, engaged… It was only for a week before we, or they, jumped through. The other Abby had given the ring to Jenny for safe keeping, since she was going through an anomaly and all." He was still in shock so she thought she'd finish it off before opening her driver door. "Only Cutter, Jenny and Sarah knew about it."

Connor didn't know what to even think. Why was Abby telling him this? No, if she didn't he'd be mad. But would he? It almost felt pointless going over so much of the other Abby and Connor's past because he knew it would never be him, and now Abby was showing him an engagement ring that **_he _**had bought for **_her _**and she had **_accepted_**? He heard Abby's car door open and his head flinched to see her staring at him.

"You okay? It's just a ring, Connor. It doesn't make us engaged or anything." She said with a laugh, but he wasn't there yet. No laughing quite yet.

"Cutter knew about the engagement?" he finally spoke.

Abby nodded. "And Sarah. Why?"

Connor shook his head and mumbled something before opening his passenger side door and sliding out of the car. Abby followed behind and they walked into the flat, still not expecting to see a flat completely different from their old one.

They were awkwardly quiet for a while, both thinking about how serious they must have been in this relationship. Connor looked at Abby as she ate some leftovers neither of them remembered making and he wondered … this Connor and Abby they keep talking about were the same people, just a Raptor caught up to him and changed things around. Abby was the same Abby. Did she possibly feel this way about him? Maybe not ready for marriage whole thing but could she like him like that and Connor just never realized?

He sat in front of her at the kitchen counter and she gave him a soft smile as she went on with eating and casually reading her Facebook feeds she had no interest in whatsoever. She noticed a status by Jess Parker and it made her realize that she was the other Abby's Facebook. That confused her even more so she started closing it out when she noticed it wasn't a status by Jess but a post a certain Connor Temple's wall.

"What does Jess mean by 'You still haven't played your turn' with a rather flirty wink?" Abby asked, regretting after letting it blurt out of her. Way to play it cool, Abby.

Connor didn't seem to mind though; he almost looked like he was smiling before he shrugged it off and answered. "It's a game we've been playing all day."

"A _game_? You hardly know her and you're playing games?"

At that comment Connor looked up from his bowl of E-Z Mac. "Why do you care?"

And he was right. Why _did _she care? In all honesty, she wished it was her playing a game with him through Facebook and in person. They never did games like that because when they first met Abby decided it was too childlike and Connor stopped asking. Abby thought about it, maybe she should tell him that… This Abby won him over by boldness, maybe she should, too. "I dunno, I guess… You just never play any of those games with me, that's all."

Connor smiled at that. His plan of being bold was working – it was making Abby bolder. "Abby, do you want me to ask you to play more games with me?"

Abby noticed his smile and just ignored it as she nodded. "Yeah, Conn. I mean I know when we first met I acted like I didn't like that stuff, but I still like to have some fun now and then."

"Then let's play a game right now, eh?"

Abby chuckled through her nose and nodded. "Okay… what?"

Connor thought about it for a second then gave a devious grin. "Ever heard of the kissing game?"

"Connor!" she playfully slapped him from across the counter and he nodded sheepishly and looked around, seeing the ring sitting out on top of the little pull-string bag. His eyes brightened and he started back again.

"Mkay, a guessing game, then."

"I'm listening,"

"How much do you wanna guess the other Connor paid for this ring?" he picked it up and surveyed it, Abby shifted her mouth to the side to think and then leaned over, putting her elbows to the counter top.

"I don't think the expense is the point in the ring, Conn."

He looked up with raised eyebrows. "Well yeah, but not the point, is it? 'Less you want me to propose or somethin'." He teased her.

Abby smiled and shook her head. "If you dared do it I'd slap you right across the head."

"Then you'd accept." He mocked her even more, and Abby even had a blush overcome her cheeks this time.

"I'd like to see that happen." She insisted as she ducked her head down, trying to hide the red in her cheeks.

"Already did, didn't it?"

"That's different – you can't use that, it wasn't us."

"Is it now?" she just shook her head at him and he sat up straight and watched her staring at her plate. "If I proposed right now what would you say?"

"Connor Temple! We aren't even together. I don't think a proposal would make much sense, now would it?"

"I dunno… there's a ring for it."

"Oh, course. If there's a ring then obviously you have to propose."

"So you agree then?" Connor got up from his seat and walked over to her with a malicious grin. Abby just shook her head and ignored him. "Abby Maitland," Abby's eyes grew big and she looked to see him kneeling beside him trying to keep in the laugh.

"Connor, get up." She said much more serious this time, but it was too late for Connor to stop now.

"Nope, you agreed yourself, Abs. We'd be a match made in heaven." she glared at him and he cleared his throat, showing the ring.

"Connor, I never said that.-"

"Abby…" she sighed and rolled her eyes. "Will you marry me?" At that comment it made Abby laugh, but she was still furious that he went this far. She rolled her eyes and pushed him back some, making him lose his balance from his stance. She walked into the living area and Connor stood up, straightening his clothes. "You sleep on it then."

She looked at him angry and walked into her room. She gave him a sharp glare and slammed the door closed, and Connor then realized how mad he just made her.

"Abby," he said beside her door, leaning his ear to the wood. "M'sorry Abs, I didn't mean to make you mad. I was just teasing!"

Abby lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling. She didn't know why it made her so mad, but it did. She heard Connor asking for her to answer but he could deal with it for the night; giving him the silent treatment was what he deserved. Or so she told herself.

After a while he gave up, he yelled through the door about going to bed and she drifted off, trying to forget the crazy disaster that had been caused from one anomaly.

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_**Next chapter brings some more anomalies into the a spin of things!**_

_**Reviews are like Mashed Potato's. **_

_**I love Mashed Potato's. **_


	10. The Anomalies

_**A/N: **_**This chapter is based on the anomaly and happenings of 3.4/G-Rex Episode. Up to Ch. 13 it will still be taking place around that episode time slot and it's the same anomaly, but different things happen because of the timeline. ****There will be a total of 15 chapters in this story - 5 more to go!**

**And like last chapter, this chapter is dedicated to Cehsja but to her story "The Long Way Home". If you've read it, you'll understand by the end. Her stuffs amazing so if you haven't read her, you should. Now go ahead, read! Hope you enjoy!**

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Abby's eyes shot open to look beside her and hear her phone ringing. If that was Connor she was going to go up to the loft and punch him in the face. Saturday mornings were for sleeping in. She pulled her phone to her ear and grumbled a hello to hear a chirpy voice on the other end. It was … Jess?

_"Rise and shine! It's Nine A.M. and there's an anomaly! What fun, isn't it?"_ Abby was too tired to tell if Jess was attempting sarcasm. She just said she'd be there when she could and Jess added one more thing. _"Don't forget Connor, by the way! I tried his mobile but it didn't even ring."_

"Kay," she mumbled and hung up. In her mind she knew it was rude, but she was too exhausted for words and logical thinking to make sense at the moment. At least she wasn't like Connor in the morning. She stepped off her bed and took in a deep breath, seeing she was still dressed from that day.

Abby walked out of her room and shouted up the loft. "Connor! Get up! There's an anomaly!" And she heard some kind of muffled response through a pillow she walked back in her room to change her shirt at least.

Connor sighed. He hadn't slept that well and he finally drifted off to sleep again when Abby yelled at him that there was an anomaly. He got dressed, tripped his way down the stairs, and slipped his shoes on when he saw Abby coming out of her room, nice and awake now as Connor still drug his feet around and murmured everything he said.

"Ready to go?" she asked, forgetting about that night. Connor shrugged which was all she would probably get out of him and went for the door, Connor slowly following behind her.

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"You said you called them, Jess?" Lester asked as Cutter had been there for quite some time and Sarah had just made her way through the ARC entrance. She wasn't usually called in but when Connor didn't answer Jess called Sarah, thinking they may need her.

"Yes of course, but I usually call Connor's mobile and he wouldn't answer so I had to find Abby's, and that took longer than it should."

"Should we go ahead without them, sir?" Becker spoke up.

"No, no. Abby and Connor are adjusting to the differences, leaving them behind is the last thing they need if we need them to decide our team is the same as before." Cutter reminded.

"Cutter's right," Sarah spoke up. "we don't need them deciding that going through an anomaly and erasing us all from history is a good idea."

"They… they wouldn't do that, would they?" Jess asked worried.

"Don't be ridiculous Ms. Parker. Temple and Ms. Maitland are much too tame to be stirring up that sort of scheme." Lester assured.

"You say that like you know us, Lester." They all turned around to see Abby and Connor entering the hub. "I'm flattered that you care."

Lester rolled his eyes and waved his hand. "Well, go on then. You all shoo, do you job and what not." And they all grouped up and headed for the exit when Lester leaned out and shouted. "And Connor,"

He paused and turned towards him. "Yo?"

"Don't get any ideas about changing the past." Connor smiled and gave a solute before turning back with the group and heading out. "I worry about that boy, Jess."

"Awe, Lester. You really do care." she said with a grin.

"I didn't mean for his safety, but merely for everyone else's." And Jess laughed when he walked back into his office and leaned back in his chair, falling back asleep. Jess smiled and laughed, knowing how much Lester really **_did_** care.

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The anomaly was huge and it worried everyone that something dangerous would come out of it. There had been no sign of an incursion but the people keeping watch really wouldn't do much if a T-Rex or G-Rex came barging through it. After a few comments about what could come through Sarah put out the thought that someone could go in real quick and see what era holds behind the glowing ball of light.

"Too dangerous." Cutter said without hesitation.

"Nick, I can go in – I don't mind, it won't take any time and-"

"If anyone goes through that anomaly it will be trained Military assistance." Becker interrupted Sarah. "We don't need another Temple and Maitland incident, and you could get hurt."

"It's just for a few seconds. And _someone _needs to go in to see where it leads or we'll have gods coming out of its seams any moment!"

"Or … not." Connor cut in, approaching Becker, Sarah and Cutter. "I have the Anomaly Locking Device… it hasn't been tested yet, but I think after I replaced the motherboard yesterday, it seems to be working."

"Anomaly Locking Device?" Becker looked confused.

"It locks the anomalies inside and out," Abby piped in, remembering when Connor learned how to invent it. "I didn't know you'd been working on it?"

Connor shrugged. "Apparently this Connor had, I just finished it."

"Connor, could it be brought here?" Sarah asked.

"Yeah, it's all packed up up at the ARC, I just didn't think about bringing it along."

"Becker, send some men to go fetch the Anomaly Locking Device." Cutter ordered, Becker nodded and walked off, talking to the only two military support that had come. "Connor, you sure it will work?"

"Couldn't say… I don't see why it shouldn't though. Just needs to be tested, and if it doesn't then I can figure what's wrong and try again."

Cutter smiled at that. "You never give up, do you Connor?"

"Not if I can help it." Connor said, looking at Abby with a smile. She raised a brow and walked away, remembering why she was mad at him. Connor groaned and Cutter watched the scene. As Sarah walked off to talk to Becker and the men Cutter placed his hand on Connor's shoulder.

"What'd you do?" he asked in a much more hushed voice so she wouldn't overhear.

Connor sighed. "Something stupid, like always."

Cutter laughed and nodded. "Just don't let that get in the way of the job."

"The being stupid or the angry Abby?"

Cutter smirked at him and replied, "Both." Before walking over to Sarah and Becker as well, giving directions of where the locking mechanism would be.

Connor waited for a few minutes, letting Abby be angry, and then he walked over beside her where she glanced at him with a fumed stare and then looked back at the anomaly. Connor shifted from leg to leg trying to know what to say when Abby spoke.

"What Connor?" she let out with great annoyance.

"Why are you so angry with me, Abs? You know I didn't mean to offend you I was just-" They both froze to see a Raptor creeping out of the large anomaly, sniffing around, until it spotted them – hissing and roaring at them.

"Cutter!" Connor yelled but when Becker turned to shoot it it scurried back into the anomaly, disappearing from their time. "I think we need to hurry and get the locking mechanism."

Sarah nodded and pulled the men along with her. Cutter looked at the two of them, knowing leaving them here with an anomaly that obviously led to the late Cretaceous was a bad idea, but he trusted them.

"I need to go with Sarah, they need our help with something-" Cutter explained as Becker handed the two of them each a weapon and nodded reassuringly before walking off. "Stay here, make sure nothing comes out. And _keep out_ of it, it's dangerous." They all left the room. This large anomaly had opened in some kind of storage building for an airport so there was a garage-like opening that stayed up so the trucks and such could come through. The anomaly was as tall as the storage building itself and it looked like an airplane could fit in the building, so knowing what could come through the anomaly scared them.

Abby and Connor stayed quiet but then it dawned on her why Cutter said what he said and she grinned. "Connor! This anomaly! It opens into the late Cretaceous!"

Cutter looked at her with wrinkled brows and then his eyes widened when he understood what she meant. "No, Abs. You heard Cutter."

"But if we could change this? Would you not go back?" if anything Abby was testing Connor, because in all honesty she was starting to like this timeline and she would feel horrible if they screwed something up even more. But she wanted to know what Connor would say, she wanted to know if he preferred engaged Connor and Abby or just mates Connor and Abby.

"No, I sorta like this timeline meself." He sighed. "But I suppose if you think we should, I'll follow you." Abby glared at him again, but for another reason all together. "What did I say now?"

"Could you not be selfless for like two seconds!"

"I'm sorry…?"

"I can't be mad at you without feeling like a horrible person!"

"So you want me to be rude to you? You want me to yell at you and never be on your side of things?"

"Well-! I don't know… I just…" she growled and turned back to the anomaly. "I like this timeline, too."

"Completely on topic." Connor quipped. He got harshly sarcastic when she made him lose his temper, which she did that usually by giving him mixed signals and yelling at him. "If you like this timeline so much then why do you want to change it so badly?"

"I don't." she said very blunt like. Connor was fixing to say something back when the Raptor came leaping out of the anomaly again but completely ignored them as he eyed Abby's jacket she had left near the station of equipment. Abby started towards it but Connor put his arm in front of her, stopping her as they watched the Raptor grab the striped jacket with its small claws and dart back through.

"No!" Abby shouted after it, Connor still holding onto her as she acted like she would run after a silly hoodie. "We have to get that back!"

"Abby, it's a jacket. We should be glad it wanted nothing to do with us!"

"I need that jacket back!" she jerked from Connor's grasp and gripped her weapon in her hand. "I'm getting that hoodie back, Cretaceous or not."

"Abby-!" Connor yelled at her but he knew it was pointless as he raised his weapon and rolled his eyes, following close behind. She ran through without any doubt and Connor did as well, just wanting to get this done with and get back home. He didn't fancy traveling through anomalies much anymore.

"You don't have to follow me, ya know." Abby told him without taking her eyes off the Raptor running towards some kind of set of woods.

"I don't understand why you even say that, because of all people you should know the answer." Abby halted suddenly, making Connor almost run into her. She spun around and looked at him in the eyes, knowing how true those words were.

"I know." She replied. "But I'm still mad at you, so don't try to soften me up with helping me in some stupid, thoughtless act."

"I'm here to protect you. End of story." Abby exhaled through her nose and then whipped back towards their trail, not wanting to answer that at the moment. They paused when they saw the Raptor cushioning her nest with Abby's black and white zip-jacket, a baby Raptor inside of it.

Connor wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her behind a tree, in instinct she slipped away from his touch when they were safe but she regretted it, feeling much more secure in his arms. Seeing Connor thinking nothing of her instinct she saw how he watched something the opposite direction intently. Her eyes followed and it was a male Raptor, luring around the nest to protect its family.

"You have a tranqu? I only have bullets." He hissed. She loved how Connor always sunk right into the situation they were in, even how silly he was he always paid attention and kept Abby safe no matter what. He almost acted like it was his job to watch over Abby, not Becker or Cutter, but Connor's.

Abby nodded, seeing how many she had. "It only holds four."

"Well, then I guess it's good you have really good aim."

"I do?" Abby tweaked brow at him and he chuckled.

"Stay positive, yeah?" Abby shook her head with a smile, even if she was angry at him, and pointed for the female Raptor who was tangling the jacket into the weeds and matted mess of other random things. "Wait, wait. Shoot the male first, he's the protector, we don't want to see him angry."

Abby knew that, why didn't she think about that? She pushed that thought away and aimed for the male, missing him by an inch. She grumbled and became flustered. One tranquil wasted already.

"It's fine Abs, you still have enough. Just aim and shoot, don't think."

"It's not quite that easy, Connor."

He gave her a smirk. "That's what I do. Sometimes I even close me eyes."

"Yeah, not comforting me here." But in a way he really did. She hid her smile and pointed at the Raptor, took a long blink and – she heard the male Raptor shriek from the sharp pain in his side. It stumbled around some as the female panicked from the nest and it fell on its side, bringing a cloud of dust to hover over him.

"Shoot the female," he reminded. She was too caught up in watching the male to even remember the female. This time, with more confidence, she shot from less of a distance and got right in the chest. She roared out a distress call and fell out of the nest, leaving the baby to jolt from the mother and run around in a fit.

"The bloody things moving too much!" then suddenly another anomaly opened right before their eyes, making the baby Raptor look at it curiously and then charging through it. The anomaly flickered closed and Connor and Abby were stunned. "Did that just … happen?"

He nodded and then shook it off, leaving the tight secluded area they were hiding in and giving Abby and hand out of it as well. She brushed off her skirt and leggings and then looked at the two full sized, unconscious predators.

"You just put down two full sized Raptors! Way to go, Abs!" he cheered, raising a hand for her to high-five. She was angry at him still but he made her promise a while back to never say no to a high-five so she smiled and returned the slap of hands.

"_We _just took down two full sized Raptors." She reminded, though she didn't want to and she didn't know why she did. _You're mad at him, Abby! Remember this!_

"We're a 'we' again, are we?" he asked rather hopeful like.

"Just because I'm mad at you doesn't mean 'we' become an 'I'. It sadly doesn't work that way." Abby walked to the nest and pulled out her jacket. It needed to be washed desperately, but she wasn't going to throw it away, she went this far for it.

"So why did 'we' come all this way for a jacket?" Abby had her back turned to him so she smiled. Of course he didn't remember, so she wasn't going to tell him. She twisted back towards him and walked forward where the anomaly opened, as if there would be an evidence of it opening or anything.

"Abs!"

"Forget it Connor, I'm not telling you!"

"No, Abby!" he pulled her arm and turned her to see the anomaly in view. It led down a straight trail and at the end they could spot a tight lighted ball frozen in the air. Abby's eyes widened and Connor's grip on her arm tightened from terror. "It's locked!"

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_**Next Ch. is "The Timeline Changed is Now Explained"**_


	11. The Timeline Changed Is Now Explained

**_A/N:_**** Decided to go ahead and post the next chapter tonight! Just because I could, you guys are so awesome with your Reviews so I thought "why not?" **

**Hope you like it! Next chapter, "The Story of Past Mistakes", is mainly flashbacks. **

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"No…" she mumbled. This can't be happening. Connor's own device was the reason for them being disserted in the Cretaceous. She ran up to it, banging on the anomaly like it was a door, like someone could hear her from the other side. "**_Open!_**" she screamed, collapsing on the dirt ground. It was locked, just like that.

Connor came beside her, in just the same amount of shock. She turned to him and her mind wasn't even thinking at that moment. "Call Cutter! Tell him we're in here!"

"Abs, we don't have cell phone towers here-"

"I know that, Connor." She unfolded her legs out from under her and pulled them up to her chest. "I know… Does this mean we're…?"

"The anomaly can be unlocked, but only from the other side." That gave Abby some hope. Cutter would see they went missing and decide to go in and look for them! "We told Cutter we wouldn't go through, Abs." he said, as if reading her thoughts.

"Well, it's not like we came through to change the past…" she said with a more positive turn on things. "I just wanted my hoodie. He'll forgive us for that, right?"

"That is _if _he unlocks it before it closes." Abby was slightly confused. She thought he was usually the optimist and she was the one who was afraid they'd die. "Why did you want the hoodie back so badly anyway?"

Abby bit her lip, looking at the jacket which draped over her knees. She guessed she should tell him since he was now stuck in the past with her because of it. She shrugged and tossed it at him. "It's yours."

"It's what?" he looked at her shocked, not noticing the jacket until now. "Why did you…?"

"One day when an anomaly opened in the woods I was cold and you had two jackets on so you lent me this one, even though it was brand new and I told you I was fine you gave it to me anyway. I loved it so much, it was so comfy, so I wore it under my leather jacket or something and you never asked for it back, so I shamefully kept it. I still found it in belongings yesterday morning, and I realized that _that _moment never changed."

"How long was that?" Connor said amused.

"Probably about a year ago, so I guess it would have been before the shopping center attack – I still didn't want to lose it though." He grinned at her and she could just hear him saying it before he even did.

"You chased a Raptor through an anomaly for one of _my _hoodies?"

She smiled sheepishly and took it back from him. "This is the best jacket I have ever worn – it's not all about you, ya know."

"Never said it was, and you can keep it by the way." He assured, still looking at her with a wide grin. "I remember that night, now thinking of it… One of the creatures died before you could get it treatment."

"Yeah… I was pretty upset." She agreed, not wanting him to put the pieces together that he gave her that jacket for comfort if anything and that's why she loved it. She loved this hoodie because it made her feel safe, and because it was Connor's, not because it was comfy – although it was especially comfy.

"Abby," she hummed an answer and he looked at her with sad eyes. "Are you mad at me even more now?"

"Why…?" then she realized they were sitting in front of a locked anomaly, and how selfless Connor's mind works, he went straight to this being his fault. "This isn't your fault, Conn."

"I don't see how it's not."

"You didn't decide to run after a jacket and drag me along with you. It's my fault, not yours. And when Cutter unlocks that anomaly don't you dare tell him otherwise! He knows me and my impulses, but if you tell him it was you he'll have to tell Lester and Lester will fly off the handle about changing the past and … it'll be more trouble than it's worth. This was all me, kay?"

Connor nodded in agreement, but she could tell he was still upset. She now couldn't let him think about never getting back, not now, the anomaly was still open so she distracted him. "Connor?" His eyes met hers. "M'sorry."

He searched her eyes, looking for a reason of this like it was the most absurd thing he had ever heard. "Why?"

"For being so horrid to you! You didn't deserve it. You were just being yourself and for some reason it ticked me off."

Connor shook his head as he studied the ground. He then looked back up at her like he had gathered the courage to ask. "Why did it make you so mad?"

"I don't know, Connor… it just did." She had hoped he would have stopped at that but he looked even more puzzled.

"I know I was being a wee bit ridiculous but I was just teasing," he assured, she didn't answer though. "Abs, it wasn't serious or anything. I'm not going to propose, yeah?"

Abby lifted her head and her voice went out of her control when she burst out, "Yes Connor, that's the point!" He looked at her astonished and she was beyond embarrassed that she actually just said that, but to her relief and distress they heard yelps from the Raptor behind them. Connor leaped to his feet, seeing the male wobble around.

"Do you have one left?" he asked, reaching for the gun. Abby looked around and to her horror, it was nowhere in sight.

"Yes…" she muttered, searching the striped jacket and looking around. "But I think I dropped it…"

"You wha'?"

"It must have slipped out of my hand up at the nest!"

"The tranqu gun is with the waking Raptors?" he asked just to get that clear and she nodded. Connor pulled out his gun from his back pocket and Abby came to her feet and lowered the weapon before he could aim.

"Connor you can't possibly kill the Raptor's."

"Don't have much choice, do I?"

"Do you want to change the past even more? You can't kill them!" she looked ahead as the male Raptor attempted to stand on his two feet and she spotted the tranquilizer gun in its path. Without another word Abby ran for the weapon, hearing Connor call after her as she skimmed down to the ground, the dirt coming up in puffs around her. When she could see through the dust she raised her gun but the Raptor was gone and the anomaly that opened before was open again. It glimmered in front of her eyes and Connor ran up beside her, dazed at the anomaly and furious at her for such a suicidal risk for her life.

She grabbed his hand that was offered and stood up, looking to see the anomaly drawing both of them in. Connor shook his head and looked at her, placing both his hands on the sides of her face. "Don't do that again."

"I'm fine."

"Abby, just … don't do it again, yeah? Remember what you said the other day about me moving out? Well it would be a pretty lonely place without _you _here, so please, don't. Ever again."

Abby gave him a smile and pulled his hands down from her face so she could nod and walk towards the anomaly. "Where'd you think it leads?"

"Beatles Concert, maybe Woodstock." Abby rolled her eyes and shook her head at him.

"Connor, what if it could bring us home?"

"Home is right down there, signed and sealed, but it's still here." He pointed down the trail that led to their anomaly and she knew he was right.

"Still, we could go through and make sure the Raptor didn't murder anyone at least."

"I really don't like that idea. The anomaly has already proven itself weak, it could close on us and then we'd be stuck for sure." Then he saw the concern on her face. "Abs, what are you not telling me?"

"That… that Raptor… it just… It almost seemed familiar, Connor. Too familiar." She looked over at the female, still sleeping, and sighed. "I think they're the same Raptor's we delivered here that changed our past."

"And you want to go after them? I thought we both agreed we liked this timeline?"

"I do, and that's why I'm afraid for it going through the anomaly. What if that wasn't supposed to happen? What if it going through the anomaly will change our past again?"

"Abs, the anomaly would have opened no matter what. Of all the things that happened, the anomalies always stayed the same, they don't change patterns because our timeline changed." When Abby and Connor heard a human cry come from the other end of the anomaly he knew there was no chance in convincing her to stay.

She jumped through, seeing the anomaly open in some kind of dark hall and she looked ahead of her to see the Raptor ripping a security guard to pieces. Connor was beside her and he already was pulling on her to leave wherever they were but she wouldn't budge. They stayed quiet enough for them to stay unnoticed but when another voice came down another small hallway Connor had to put his hand on Abby's mouth to keep her from screaming 'Run!' and bringing attention to them.

The Raptor tore apart the other security guard and Abby looked around, trying to keep her mind off of her surroundings as she waited and hoped it would move on and she could find out what year they were in but then it dawned on her where they were exactly. "Connor, I know this place."

"What-?" and then he looked, recognizing it himself. "We need to go back, Abs. Now."

She nodded in agreement and they hurried back through, the anomaly staying open still. They took a deep breath, finally putting all the pieces together. It made so much sense now! Abby gave a smile and Connor returned it.

"It's a really good thing you didn't shoot that Raptor!" she said with a grin.

"They're the Raptor's from the shopping center! Why didn't we realize this?"

"We brought the Raptor's into this area where the anomaly was opening, but it knew us, and **_that's _**why in this timeline it chased after me and you in the shopping center! It recognized us!" Abby explained aloud and Connor looked at her confused.

"Wait, you know that story too then? How we got together?"

"Jenny told me, remember?" he nodded and let another smile spread across his face.

"We've just created ourselves a really weird time loop." He joked, Abby laughing with him.

"Do you think… maybe that's why Helen never showed up? The Raptors got her somehow?"

"It could be. Still doesn't quite explain the flat, though, does it?"

Abby smiled. "No, I suppose not." And at that Abby saw sudden shock emerge over Connor's expression. She straightened up slowly, seeing Connor doing the same, and she whispered over to him as he stared behind her. "Is she awake?"

Connor nodded. "I don't see her anywhere."

"It's okay, she'll probably just be drawn in by the anomaly, yeah?" he nodded again but he couldn't help and walk closer to her, trying to keep her in his reach. Abby looked down the trail and saw the anomaly that led home was now unlocked and she grinned at Connor, pointing for him to see.

"Should we make a run for it?" she asked. He looked around, not really sure what to do, and nodded. They darted for the anomaly straight on, holding each other's hands without even noticing. They reached to it pretty soon and didn't hear anything behind them but when suddenly they almost fell back, running into Cutter himself as they heard a cry of something much larger as it rattled their grounds. Cutter looked down at them concerned and helped them up, helping them back through and having it lock behind them. Connor and Abby breathed hard and laughed to each other but when they stood up straight they saw Cutter and Jenny looking at them rather serious.

"Professor," Connor started but Cutter didn't let him start.

"I thought I said to _stay away from the anomalies_? Are you both too foolish to even try and listen to me for one bloody time!"

"Cutter, we didn't do anything to-"

"**_Don't _**tell me you didn't do anything, you have no idea what you could have done in there!"

"Don't snap at Abby," Connor raised his voice. "It was my fault, yell at me. But don't blame this one her."

Abby looked at him hurt. But not because he went against what she asked, she knew he wouldn't do what she had said. It was how protective she acted towards him. "Connor-"

"Your fault? Then tell me how you _possibly _could have thought dragging Abby into an anomaly with **_Raptor's _**was a good idea! And from the looks of it possibly a T-Rex!"

"Cutter it was me who ran through the anomaly, Connor's just taking the blame-!"

"I don't care if the Raptor started it! I'm disappointed in _both _of you. Going through that anomaly was foolish, unprofessional, and dangerous and you risked every single life that lived on this side of the anomaly. For what? So you could see if you could go back?-"

"You have no bloody idea why we went through that anomaly!" Connor yelled this time. Abby was worried; it took a lot to make Connor yell. "I'll have you know we went through because Abby wanted her hoodie back! Foolish? Yes! But we weren't heartless enough to risk erasing more people from history! So if I can now, I would like to go home because I'm exhausted, hungry and really_, __**really**_ticked off that you thought we would even _think _about doing what **_I _**personally promised I wouldn't do!" Connor looked at Jenny and she gave a nod of approval to go home. Abby held onto his hand, never letting go from earlier, and squeezed it tight – letting him know she was still there.

Suddenly Abby and Connor heard a whistle. "Wow, you guys really know how to put on a show."

"Danny, shut up." Jenny snapped at him. Connor and Abby looked to see Danny Quinn himself standing beside Becker and leaning on a truck. "How're you doing? Cretaceous hard on your nerves? I heard anomalies do that to people."

"What are you doing here…?" Abby said confused.

"Danny had followed you up here." Jenny informed. "He apparently saw you two walking into the anomaly, he warned us to unlock it before it closed for good. He's in custody now."

Danny showed his other hand handcuffed to Becker's heavy appliances and Becker gave him a glare. "He's a ball of sunshine, isn't he?" he implied towards Becker.

Abby smiled to herself and cleared her throat, seeing Cutter staring at the ground. "Cutter… I'm sorry, like we said, I went through because the Raptor grabbed my jacket and it was stupid, I know… but I really like the jacket so I went in, Connor telling me otherwise. He just followed to keep me safe."

"Now that I remember, I do recall them arguing about Abby not needing to go in over a hoodie." Danny piped in and Cutter gave him a sharp glare.

"Someone please shut him up." Cutter said before looking back at Connor and Abby, his eyes filled with regret. "I think it's time I tell you what happened to Stephen."

Danny gasped and everyone looked at him with glares. "What? Sounds interesting, don't it?"

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_**Reviews are like Nachos.**_

_**I love Nachos. **_


	12. The Story of Past Mistakes

_**A/N:**_** This chapter goes in and out of flashbacks. Enjoy!**

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Jenny gave Cutter a reassuring look and a peck on the cheek before going to help Lester with some trouble a certain Christine Johnson had fired up that afternoon. Danny Quinn had yet escaped much to Cutter dismay, he had hoped he'd try to leave and disappear for a week or two, but Danny seemed quite content making flirty gestures to Sarah and retorting a few snarky comments to Becker's men and Connor and Abby.

They were still at the anomaly sight, Connor unsure if the locking mechanism would hold up, but Becker had left with Jenny and some of his men stayed beside the ginormous ball of light to make sure if it did unlock, nothing would come through. Cutter sat down at a fold-up card table they had packed in the back of one of the ARC vehicles and Connor and Abby sat across from him, waiting for the story to begin.

They were both a little nervous about this story, seeing as how it made Sarah and Cutter react just when you said Stephen's name, and now they were both present for the explanation of Stephen's death. Danny looked a little too eager about it and Sarah looked ill but she insisted in staying.

Cutter adjusted his seat and sighed, glancing at Sarah every now and then, obviously hating for her to hear this told since she was there for it in the first place. Abby felt so weird, about to hear a story of how Stephen died, she knew how Stephen died – yet, she didn't. She was there for his funeral, yet she wasn't. She thought she must've had the courage to hold Connor's hand for comfort at his funeral here, they were together here. It must have been nice to have Connor be with her as she cried at night, telling her it'd be all right.

"Suppose I should start, then…" Cutter spoke up. "I know you two have a of a different way of things going down, as I know with you Helen came back and helped Leak with his little try on the ARC and helped him succeed, which led to Stephen's death. But here, Helen never came back until about a month ago…" suddenly they saw Sarah grab a chair and sit down beside Danny as she listened, Danny was listening in to the story as well. She didn't look anywhere but the floor as she tapped on her blank notepad with a pen and stayed silent. "Anyway, she had been injured apparently, some Raptor attacked her and she stayed out of the loop of anomalies for a while. But then one day she just came out of nowhere, not in her right mind, and … she messed a whole lot of things up, to say the least."

_"Helen, what are you doing here?" Cutter asked, worried for the teams safety as the frazzled woman walked from the anomaly, standing with a bandaged leg and unkempt hair. The smirk on her face didn't look quite right, then suddenly a sad expression swept over her and she pulled out a gun from the behind her. "Helen…"_

_"Don't worry, Nick. It's just a gun." She brought a smile back. "Won't hurt anyone, will it?"_

_"Cutter, do you want me to call Lester or-?" Connor asked but Helen shot him a glare and stood closer to Stephen whose arms were crossed and ignoring the pursuing of the Professor's wife. Helen sighed, seeing the scowl that Stephen sent towards her, and walked back to Cutter with another smirk._

_"Do you know what's worse than a Raptor tearing the flesh off your bare leg?" Cutter flinched at the thought and Helen continued, satisfied at his reaction. "Being chased by a future predator that you find out was created by your very own husband."_

_Cutter looked at her shocked and Stephen unraveled his arms and spoke up. "What are you going on about, Helen?"_

_"Nick here is the cause for the end of the world. That's all, nothing more."_

_"What's on the other side of the anomaly, Helen?" Cutter demanded. She looked at him with pursed lips and looked to her side, slanting her head._

_"Depends, what do you want it to be?"_

_"Stop with your games, Helen. What's on the other side?"_

_Helen bellowed a mocking laugh. "That's the last of your worries."_

_Stephen inched closer to the both of them. "And why is that?" And the next thing anyone knew Helen reached for her gun and pointed it straight for Cutter's temple. Everyone was frozen, not sure what to think. Stephen looked behind Cutter – seeing the horrified team all watching._

_"Cutter!" Connor yelled in horror, Abby holding him back from charging into the gunfire. _

_"Look Nick, turns out you did always get what you wanted. Children." _

_Cutter narrowed his eyes at her and opened his mouth to speak. "Sarah, get them out of here." He couldn't hear a response but he did hear Abby and Connor argue over leaving then hearing their voices fade out. "Stephen, you need to go too."_

_"I'm not going anywhere – Helen put the bloody gun down!"_

_"Or what, Stephen? I can't trust you anymore, you betrayed me. There's nothing you and anyone could say to make me change my mind. I'm sorry, Nick… but it seems this is the only way."_

_"The only way is to shoot me? Helen!" Cutter shouted. "You know better than this! If I'm no longer the reason for the future than someone else will be!"_

_"I can't take the risk of allowing you to live, Nick!" Helen hollered with tears swelling in her eyes. She wasn't in her to become emotional, but it also wasn't in her to react with a gun pointed to her husband's head._

_"Helen, please… put the gun down." Stephen begged as his emotions took a hold of him as well, seeing how serious she was about shooting Cutter dead. _

_"I'm sorry… I can't…" she looked at Cutter in the eyes, looking him with deep regret. "Forgive me."_

_Cutter blinked back a tear and opened his eyes to see her waiting. "Not for this one. You always came off smarter than you really were, Helen." _

_She tightened her lips and squeezed the trigger, shooting the gun to his head. Cutter closed his eyes as he heard the gun shoot off, and when he heard it hit the target and feel no pain in him his eyes opened, seeing Stephen lying in front of him – dead. _

_Helen was in shock, dropping the gun to the ground and backing away from what she had done. He felt like everything in him had stopped, seeing the bullet hole in Stephen's skull. He fell to his knees, hearing Connor and Abby run in was all muted to him as the soldiers made their way in, minutes too late. Sarah's hand weighted on Cutter's shoulder before collapsing to the floor with him; both staring at the body in front of them like it wasn't real. Her sobs echoed the room, as did Abby and Connor's, he looked ahead and saw Helen gone into the anomaly once again and he didn't care – the pain in his heart too heavy to care about anything at the moment but what was in front of him._

Sarah felt a hand on her shoulder, seeing Danny give her comfort to her like he'd known her for some time. She didn't brush it off but let him give her comfort as she tried her hardest not to cry.

Stephen's death was hard on her, but it wasn't just because she was involved with Stephen, but that was the first death of the team. It made her realize how real all this was, and that scared her, and fear brought tears.

Connor and Abby were quiet, letting Cutter keep his silence as he waited to start back into the story. It had only been a month since Stephen's death, and at any time this would be a rough subject, but right now it wasn't easy for anyone. Cutter cleared his throat and went back into it.

"Helen disappeared, but that anomaly didn't close for a while… I had decided that what Stephen had done was against the balance, if that makes sense now I have no idea, but then it had. I decided to go in after Helen, through that anomaly, and somehow, not knowing how … change it."

"You wha'?" Connor said surprised. This was Cutter! Sensible, thoughtful Professor Nick Cutter!

"It was probably the worst mistake I have ever made, Connor, don't get me wrong… but, I felt responsible for Stephen's death, and I felt I needed to change it. So I went through."

"What happened?" Abby asked.

"I went through dozens of anomalies, I had an anomaly detector with me, and there always seemed to be an anomaly in whatever era I was in. I was really just trying to run into Helen before she had gone through that anomaly and fired her gun, but it was almost impossible to find her. I kept track of her through anomalies, and I learned how to figure out what opened where after only a few weeks, seeing how everything led to what.

"At one point I found myself in our time again, or so I thought, but it ended up being years before and stepping into my own timeline was a very bad choice because Helen had seen me coming through…" Cutter sighed. He took a sip from his water and looked back at them. "Apparently her seeing me … it caused her to slip, more than she had before. Who knows, she could have disappeared sooner, seeing the anomaly with me coming through it … But only I or Stephen would have known that, that or records, and I never saw the need in looking up."

_"…Professor?" he looked up, seeing two extremely familiar faces grinning at him. "Cutter!" Connor let out a laugh. "You made it back!"_

_Abby beamed at Cutter, helping him up from the ground as he had just jumped through an anomaly – not expecting to be back in quite the right timeline. He'd finally meet up with Helen before she had shot Stephen, and he was certain it had changed everything. It had to have. He almost shot Helen himself, seeing her there in front of him, but he couldn't find it in him to kill her. They may not even be here if she had died so soon down the road. "I knew you'd make it back." She assured him. Cutter pulled Abby in for a hug, happy to see her face once again. He peered his eyes opened, seeing Connor watching. Cutter let out an arm and he huddled around them and embraced them both. He was home; but one thing wasn't right. Stephen wasn't there. _

_"Why is it that I wasn't invited for this welcoming party?" Cutter pulled away from the two and saw Jenny standing there, arms crossed, and a smile trying it's best to hide as she tapped her foot impatiently. Cutter smiled at her and before she could say another word he cupped the sides of her face with his hands and gave her a passionate kiss. He heard Connor make some comment about them and giving out an 'ouch' right after, probably due to Abby shoving him in the gut with her elbow. _

_"Professor," Connor piped in causing Jenny and Cutter to break apart. "I hate to break up the celebration, but how the hell did you get back?"_

_"I'll explain that later. Where's Stephen?"_

_They all looked at him worried and it hit him hard when he realized why. "Cutter," Connor said. "Stephen's dead…"_

_"How?" Cutter had mourned enough to feel that pinch every time he heard those words. "Did it happen the same way? Did Helen get away this time?"_

_They all shook their heads and Abby answered this time. "No, Cutter … Helen's dead, too."_

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**_Next ch. will be "The Danny Quinn Adventure"_**


	13. The Danny Quinn Adventure

_**A/N:**_** Sorry if this needs major editing, I went over it some the other day but I'm not in the mood for editing and it's my b-day, so enjoy! I enjoyed writing this chapter - next chapter will be skipping about three months.**

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"Oi, so you killed your wife in the end too then?" Danny asked, quickly after feeling a sharp pain in his gut – that being Sarah's elbow. Cutter laughed just at Sarah's response and looked at Danny.

"Well, I wouldn't say I killed her when really, Helen was already gone by the time she had come back through that anomaly… But somehow when I came back, Helen had gone insane and shot more than just Stephen, changing timelines on me once again."

"What do you mean? – … What did she do?" Abby hastily questioned.

"Helen tried to shoot Cutter and when Stephen got in the way she lost it," Sarah told them, all fairly shocked at her speaking. "if she hadn't already. She shot Cutter in the leg, shot three military assistants when they came in to stop the shooting, shot two of the lab technicians and then shot herself."

_"But… how were all those people…?" Cutter asked, sitting on the ground with tears building in his eyes. _

_"She opened an anomaly with some opening device in the ARC – she barged through, closed it, shot everyone we told you about and then ended her own life." Becker informed him, feeling bad but knowing he would be the only one with the control to tell him about this disaster. _

_"I just went back to keep Stephen from dying…" Cutter muttered. "I didn't mean to…"_

_"Nick," Jenny raised his head to look at her. "This is not your fault, none of it. Do you understand me?" Cutter shook his head and stood up from the dirty ground._

_He stared at the anomaly and took a deep breath. "I need to go back-"_

_"Cutter!" Connor stopped him, capturing him in his arms. "It won't do any good, Cutter. It only just makes things worse."_

_"If it can save Stephen!-"_

_"There's nothing left to save." Cutter saw the tears in his eyes and realized he left his team when they needed him most. They had lost a friend as well and he had abandoned them. "Stephen's gone, and if you go back you might be gone, too."_

_Cutter backed away from the magnetic field and nodded. "You're right, Connor. No use in going back now."_

_"Why don't we go to the ARC?" Jenny offered. "I'm sure Lester will be thrilled to see you." _

_Everyone chuckled and Cutter gave a nod, still focusing his attention to the anomaly. "Yeah, yeah I guess we should do that." -_

"Touching story, really, I'd love to get my hands on it." Abby, Cutter and Connor turned to see a blond in high heels and a pant suit standing with pursed lips at the opening, a man behind her with a camera recording the anomaly, and a dark skinned reporter beside her with awful hair. "How much do you want for it?"

The military men pointed their guns right at the intruders, the blond just smirking and the reporter raising his hands as if he was innocent. Cutter stormed from his seat and stood in front of the reporter and the blond with a scowl.

"I thought Ms. Lewis told you to leave us alone or there would be consequences." He threatened.

"Your girlfriend?" the reporter, Mick Harper, replied with a smug look. "We're not afraid of her."

Connor let out a snicker and they all looked at him. "Oh, sorry it's just … If I was you, I would be very afraid of her." Danny laughed with him and Cutter looked back at the two reporters with a smile.

"I'd have to agree with him."

Mick snorted. "Connor's always the one to agree with."

"Oi!" Connor walked to Cutter's side with furrowed brows. "How do you know my name?"

"I did my research." He stated. "I know all about your little blond back there as well. It's amazing what dirt I could use on her, actually."

Connor's expression turned into a grimace and he balled his hands into a fist, ready to strike the sleaze-ball in the nose when Cutter gently placed a hand on his shoulder. "Not worth it, Connor."

"Well," the blond spoke. "For us it would be – then we could sue you and get your name out for all of London to see."

"Get out." Connor snapped. They smirked at him and the blond laughed.

"Touchy, touchy." Mick went on. "We're sorry we insulted your girlfriend, but really there's not much to insult, is there?" And at the Connor raised his fist to punch him straight in the jaw but Abby stopped him before he could, looking him in the eyes and then shooting glares at the pair of reporters; digging for anything that would get the publicity they wanted.

"Looks like Connor boy has a temper. Just like his daddy." The blond commented.

"Sure looks that way – shame to see the skank has him on a leash." He replied immediately after. Connor tried to go in towards them but Cutter and Abby blocked him and she led him to the anomaly; away from those leaches.

"Connor," Abby started as he continued to scowl at the reporters from across the building. "You know they were just trying to make you hit him – they saw your dad's background and assumed you had a bit of a temper yourself." Connor never even looked at her. She sighed and pulled his face to see her. "Connor, look at me."

"Abs, can we not right now?" she narrowed her eyes at him and he groaned, knowing it was no use.

"Don't let what they said get to you,"

"I'm not." He assured her, but she still eyed him since it was obvious he was affected. "I promise, yeah? They can say what they want 'bout me. It's what they said abou' you that they shouldn't get away with."

"I've heard worse, doesn't bother me." She gave him a smile and sighed. "You sure you're fine?"

"Yah know one day people are going to regret not asking me if I'm okay." Danny interrupted. They looked at him with humorous looks and he shrugged. "Just sayin', one day it might fix your problems."

"And how is that Danny?"

He wiggled around some and shrugged again. "It could happen."

Cutter watched as Abby took Connor out of earshot and looked back at the reporter's furious.

"That's enough with your tricks – get out or we'll handcuff you."

"You can't possibly take us under custody! We're innocent bystander's trying to make a living." The blond reporter insisted.

Cutter wanted to laugh at their little schemes. "You're on government property, disobeying government orders, and threatening to blackmail government officials. We got passed innocent long ago."

"You don't _own_ these, what do they call them?" the blond looked at Mick.

"Anomalies."

"Ah, right. I highly doubt you own these 'anomalies'."

"It's on our property. It belongs to us and us alone. Now go or you're under arrest."

"I'd like to see you try."

"All right," he turned to see the soldiers when the camera man suddenly gasped as the blond jerked his camera from his grasp and slammed it into Cutter's head, causing him to fall on the ground.

"Oops."

"Did you just bloody hit him?" Danny hollered, just as shocked as everyone else. Suddenly Danny noticed Sarah was missing, his eyes searched around and they caught site of her sneaking behind the blond. In one kick in the knees Sarah caused the blond to fall to the cemenet and drop the camera to the ground, shattering it in pieces.

"That's for Nick you-" Sarah was cut off by Mick who had backed away just enough to fall right over the locking mechanism, creating a clatter of sounds and taking the device down with him. He shot up from the ground, everyone watching him with a tweak of an eye brow, and he looked around in horror. To no one's notice the anomaly was now unlocked and when they all heard a sound of a T-Rex or bigger they were in as much horror as Mick and the blond.

The blond, seeing the camera in pieces, took a run for it out of the building and Mick darted out behind her. Becker's men groaned and ran after the two silly reporters, leaving Cutter unconscious and Sarah, Danny, Connor and Abby to fend for themselves with a possible T-Rex disaster.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Abby said in a bit of a panic.

"Connor, is the device still doable?" Sarah asked hopeful, rushing over to the anomaly to grab a weapon. "Think a button was just hit, perhaps?"

Connor nodded, falling out of shock, and ran to the device but not much to his surprise it was broken. "It's … this'll take a least an hour to fix." And another roar echoed out of the flickering light.

"I don't think you have that much time, mate." Danny said with a smug look.

At that Abby realized – it was flickering! "Look, its closing!" she announced as Cutter moaned, making his way up from the cement and seeing Danny standing behind Abby and Connor, but out of his handcuffs.

"Quinn!" Cutter hollered, and they all turned to see him with a sheepish grin.

"The nice thing would to be askin' if I were all right and all," he said with a persistent grin but they just looked at him puzzled. "And at that, I've gotta scatter." He said moving between them all to reach for his jacket and instead grabbing Sarah's hand and holding her in front of him.

"Danny, what are you-?" she managed out before she realized – Danny lost a brother through an anomaly, he wasn't just there for a show.

"Been waitin' for the right time, seems this would be it!"

"Danny, you can't seriously be thinking about going in there!" Abby said. "You'll be trapped!" Danny grinned at her let go of Sarah, pushing her away from the danger and into the team.

"Thanks doll," he winked at her and sighed. "Well, great knowing all of you – let's hope we'll meet again."

"Did you not hear a bloody word I said!? You heard the story!" Cutter came walking back to the scene and he shrugged.

"All your story said to me was I could travel back in my own time! Don't you see? I wanted to find my brother when I can easily just stop it from ever happening! It'll be quite the adventure, I'd say!"

"No, Danny!" Sarah tried to inch closer to him but he stepped back from her touch and closer into the anomaly.

"Don't get into too much trouble." He gave another wink and stepped through the anomaly, it closing right behind him. The roaring was over, the panic was over, and everyone in the room felt like their lives would be slipping away any minute – but the longer they stood there, the more time came to wonder if Danny even made it past the large predator.

Jenny stood at the opening, astonished at what she just witnessed and was speechless until her tongue found words, spewing them out. "What the _hell _just happened?"

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_**I hated those reporters so I made them extra evil, just like if I write Jack I make him extra annoying. If that's possible.**_

_**Reviews are like birthdays.**_

_**I love birthdays.**_


	14. The Months Gone By

_**A/N: **_**I've been away from computer access all day so I wasn't able to post. So sorry! But here it is. Next chapters the last! GASP!**

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"You win." Connor leaned back in the swivel chair and sighed. Jess sat at the ADD, Connor beside her, and she smirked to herself.

"'Bout time you gave up."

Connor raised his head some to look at her and let out a slight chuckle. "I have to say, you know a whole lot more on these people than I do."

Jess cocked her head to the side. "Well not anymore – now we probably know about the same."

Connor laughed and nodded. "Yeah, guess the game defeated its own purpose, didn't it?"

Jess smiled and typed something out on the screen.

_"Month 3: Jess 37 – Connor 36"_

"Guess that means our games over then, huh?" Jess said a bit sad.

"We can always think up another one… But next game let's not base it on a secret of every ARC employee…"

"Well…" Jess scrunched her nose to look at him. "we never got to around Abby, so it wasn't **_every _**ARC employee."

"Forget it, Jess."

"C'mon, Connor! You'd win that way!" Connor shook his head and she let out a silly whine. "I told you all of Becker's secrets!"

"You told Connor what now?" Jess froze and the color in her face drained as Becker approached them. Her back faced Becker but Connor could see him and the grin on Becker's face was all too amusing to not laugh at – which eased Jess's shoulders as she turned to see Becker.

"Nothing, I wouldn't ever tell Connor **_all _**your secrets, I mean that would be humiliating for you and probably me and I mean if I told him then what's the point in secrets so in reality I wouldn't possibly tell him _all _your secrets – or secretive information – or personal information, that's better. But I wouldn't tell him because that would be horrid of me I was just saying that which I guess is just as worse than-" she felt Connor's hand on her shoulder. She turned around to see him and she noticed the looks both then men were giving her.

Becker was smiling with eye brows raised and that normal just smug expression he always gave her while she rambled and Connor had a very amused look as he stood up from his seat. "It's okay, Jess. You're too sweet for anyone to be mad at you." Connor assured.

"Hey now, Temple. That's my line." Connor put out his hands in surrender and walked off, leaving the two of them to flirt and plan for their lunch.

Three months. That kept echoing in Connor's head. Three months they had been in this timeline, and he loved this timeline more than anything, but it had been _three months_.

He now was closer to everyone, even closer to Cutter which he never knew was possible. But he and Abby were the same, and that's what bothered him – they were still those pals that continued to deny any feelings for each other even though it was obvious they were there, and mutual. Connor walked to the menagerie where Abby was deep in thought, he always visited her this time round. It was a Friday so he didn't get to have lunch with Abby like he usually did, which meant he was going to extend his visit there as long as possible.

Cutter and Sarah watched Connor walk pass the lab and Sarah smiled to herself, seeing where he was headed.

"You know, I think these past months have done well for Connor and Abby." Sarah spoke up. Cutter looked at her a bit confused but then nodded.

"I probably should take them off suspension then." He joked. After Connor and Abby's little adventure for a jacket those month back Lester and Cutter agreed they should be suspended from field work, and Cutter was allowed to dismiss it when he felt it was right.

Sarah chuckled with a nod as well. "I think they learned their lesson."

"I'm just afraid they'll make the same mistake I did, but I guess it's a silly thought … they've always seemed to have more sense than me in the first place – don't ever tell them I said that, though."

Sarah smiled. "Of course."

"Cutter!" they looked to their side to see Jess and Becker sneaking into the lab and she let out an irate sigh. "What is with them? If they don't hurry it along I'm going to lose some money here!"

Cutter and Sarah both laughed and looked at Becker. "I'm with Jess, the moneys practically in the other guy's pockets if they don't just…"

"Get together. It's okay Becker, saying it won't kill you." Jess teased him and looked back at the doctor and the professor. "If I lose this bet I'm not going to be happy."

"It's okay Jess," Cutter began. "It's impossible for anyone who betted against it to win."

"I told you betting got messy," Becker taunted her and she just glared at him and walked out, leaving Becker, Cutter and Sarah to laugh. "She insisted that she would win this one."

"How much money did she put in?" Sarah asked.

Becker chuckled again before walking out to find her. "Too much to lose."

* * *

Connor didn't understand the two of them, and he was the other half to the word 'two'. He knew Abby had feelings for him, it was quite blunt from the story he had heard of the other Connor and Abby's past and she repeated herself over and over that they were the same people, as did Connor, so why was it that three months had passed and Abby still said they were just mates? He wanted to do something about it but he didn't know what and everyone he asked either laughed, like Cutter and Becker, or said something among the lines of _"I knew it"_ like Jess and Sarah and rambled on about how perfect they were.

"Err, Connor?" he paused and turned around seeing his Oriental tech assistant, Emma, coming to him.

He gave her a welcoming smile and answered. "Yo?"

Emma gave a blush and walked near him, a bit hesitant. "I hope you don't mind me calling you Connor, I just…"

"Emma, how many times have I told all of you to call me Connor? It's fine."

"I know, you always have said to, it's just – you are our boss and it would make sense for us to call you Mr.-"

"I hate being called 'Mr.', Emm. I either feel like me mums mad or I'm some posh guy in a suit – trust me, just 'Connor' is fine."

Emma nodded with a smile and handed him a cup of coffee. "Here, I noticed you didn't have a cup this morning so…"

"Err, wow – thanks Emm! You didn't have to do that…"

"No trouble at all! I went to go get some coffee and I thought I would get you some. You do so many things like that for us so I thought I'd return the favor."

Connor nodded and took a sip. "You knew just how I like it, brilliant! Thanks!" and Connor started to walk off but he heard her timid voice speak up so he bent back towards her before ever even moving his feet.

"We should get coffee ourselves sometime, maybe…"

"Yeah, that'd be great! You and me and Jess and Mike, oh and Peter!-" Then something dawned on Connor, of all the people, of course! Emma would be the most perfect person to ask! She was honest.

"I actually was thinking just-"

"Emm, I have a question for you." Emma looked at him with an excited expression and he quickly went on. "You've got a love life, yeah? See I'm real bad with all that stuff, and I need someone's advice. If you had someone you were in love with, but you're best friends with that person and you don't want to ruin that – what would you do?"

Emma looked stunned. Connor Temple was just as oblivious as everyone said; and yet she still adored him. Emma sighed, knowing who he meant, and decided to answer. "If that was me, I'd tell them. No matter what situation you were in, friends or co-workers, or_ flat mates, _I would tell that person."

"That obvious, eh?"

Emma giggled and nodded. "I'd heard around, yeah. Besides, she comes looking for you every day at least twice a day, you can easily say she feels the same."

"Well thanks Emm, I think you've given me the best advice out of everyone in the ARC." He took another sip. "Maybe you should ask Pete to coffee sometime, I know he's not taken."

Emma's eyes widened and Connor walked off, heading towards menagerie. She took it back – Connor Temple _wasn't _as oblivious as everyone said.

Connor walked in, seeing Abby standing at the desk near the window and writing off some kind of request for more food for the habitat. One of Abby's helpers came over to Connor with a smile, knowing him pretty well by now. "Hey, Connor! How's it going today?"

Connor shrugged. "It's going. Been sorta slow today – waitin' for me updates to finish installing so I've been buyin' time and came to visit Abby. You?"

"It's been on the slow side. Since four creatures have been returned to their era in the past month the creatures all have their own stalls and they've been pretty content."

"How's Abby doing? I know she was pretty attached to the Ornithopod."

"She's okay from what we can tell… she's been acting pretty clinging to the Mammoth, though."

"As she always is when a creature goes home."

"I know you two are talking about me," she hollered over to them, still looking down at the paper work. His friend, Mark, gave a scared look and walked over to help out with some feeding and Connor strolled over beside her, peeping over her shoulder to see what she was doing. "Don't read over my shoulder."

He backed off and plopped down in a spinning chair at the desk. "Bit grumpy today, are we?" Abby looked at him and sighed.

"M'sorry, don't mean to be." She closed the paper work into a file and propped herself on the wooden desk. "Been a bit of wreck today, I suppose."

"You look lovely to me."

Abby glowered at him and looked out the window. "I noticed you and Emma were talking…"

"Yup." Connor said without anything else. She looked at him and slanted her mouth to the side, debating if she should ask.

"You know how much she adores you, don't you?"

Connor laughed and nodded. "Yeah, bit obvious, init?"

Abby was too curious. She had to know, she looked so flirty out there, laughing and giving him coffee. She knew it was pathetic, but she had to ask. "And you interested in her or…?"

Connor choked on his coffee when she asked that question, he looked at her shocked and she winced. _Probably shouldn't have said anything, Abby. _"She's nice and all, but she's not much my type, is she?"

"Well she looked pretty flirty is all, she gave you a coffee and you did accept so…"

"What's it to you anyway, eh?" and when he saw her expression he eased up, feeling bad to come off harsh. "I'm not interested in her, Abs. No worries, yeah? Besides Peter's practically in love with her himself, I'd think he'd find a way to kill me in secret if I took her up on her offer."

"Offer?"

He sighed. "She asked me to coffee, but like I said, I'm not interested."

"Well, why not?" she knew she would regret this, but she wanted to know why every girl that came into his path he rejected, which lately seemed to be quite a lot, and yet he failed to ever make step forward with her. "I mean she's pretty, she likes you, she likes computers, and she's nice…"

"Why are you pursuing this so much?"

"Just curious I guess." She bit her lip and decided to take the leap and ask. "You never seem very interested in other girls…"

"You implying I'm gay?"

Abby jerked her head to him but when she saw his grin she pursed her lips and slumped her shoulders. "Forget it."

"I'm just teasing Abs, c'mon!" he leaned forward in his seat and rolled the chair closer to her so she only could hear him. "Just rather not talk about this here, yeah? I've never fancied an audience."

Abby wrinkled her brows and looked at him questionably. "Talk about what?"

The lights went off around them and they knew it was another anomaly. The assistants all looked at Abby and Connor, wondering if they would attend this one since they'd been suspended for going through that one three months back.

Cutter rushed in and looked at them with a huff. "We need you two's help so you're no longer suspended, congrats." And he walked out. Abby and Connor grinned at each other and grabbed their things, Abby grabbing her striped jacket that Connor insisted her to keep and Connor throwing his coffee in the trash before it was finished.

"Cutter," Connor ran up beside him, seeing the fear in his eyes. "What's so special about this one?"

"It's …" Cutter stopped and looked at Connor and Abby both. "This timeline is what you've adjusted to, correct? No trying to turn the tables?"

Abby gently smiled at Connor and then back at Cutter. "We're happy here, Cutter. We promise." He nodded and showed them the hand held device. It gave a map and location.

"That's… that's the anomaly at the airport!" Connor said.

"And something already come through it – we need to hurry." They nodded in understanding and went off to gather their equipment and go for the location as fast as possible. The worst they could think was that Raptor came back through, or maybe even a G-Rex, and they just hoped they'd get there in time.

* * *

Abby and Connor were ordered to their own car for some bizarre reason. Becker asked what car arrangements should be directed and Jess spoke up in the coms saying she thought it would be best if Connor and Abby got their own car. Becker, Sarah and Cutter all looked at each with knowing looks then immediately agreed and left the two of them completely confused on what was going on.

Abby was a bit suspicious. She had heard something about a bet the past few months. People had been conspiring about when Abby would end up with Connor. She never would have thought Cutter, Sarah or Jess for that matter to be involved in this type of game but she let it be – wanting to speak to Connor anyway.

"Conn," she spoke as she drove. She always drove the car; he tended to look away from the rode quite a lot so there was no arguing about it. She was the driver.

Connor looked up at her, away from the anomaly detector. "Yeah?"

She slid her eyes to glance at him and found it in her to say it. Last time she was bold she had Connor on one knee in a mocking way, she hoped this time wouldn't come to that. "What were you meaning earlier? When the anomaly alert went off."

Connor chuckled through his nose. "I guess we don't have an audience this time. Rather odd too, Sarah prefers to ride with us."

"You're not answering my question."

He smirked at her. "Hasty, are we?"

"Connor!" she barked and he let in, giving her a repeated "okay".

"It was just … I really was thinking this in more of a romantic setting."

Abby raised her brows and turned her head to him – that is until she realized she wasn't watching the road and quickly bent her head back. How could she respond to that? "This isn't another proposal, is it?" she teased him and to her relief he laughed.

"No," he said with another chortle. "I think I know better than to ever bring that up again."

"In my defense you did go too far." She said with a smile.

Connor decided to jest back. "And in my defense, you were giving me mixed signals."

Abby laughed at him and couldn't help but flash him another smile before looking to the traffic. "Only in your mind would I be giving you signals, Connor."

Connor frowned at that. She was so indecisive it made him want to scream- or roar, that's manlier. "Oh I see, so when I told you I was just teasing and you said that was the point, that wasn't you implying whatsoever that you would want to marry me in your future." He was still teasing her, but he was serious too and Abby could tell. She should've known being bold would seclude to this.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Denying it was the best option at the time.

"You're a really bad liar, you know it?"

"You can't say much."

"At least I'm being honest now."

"Connor, you won't even tell me what you wanted to talk about in the first place."

"Who's to say this isn't it?"

"If you wanted to talk about the time you fake proposed in a 'romantic setting' then I'd love to see what you want to talk about in a horrible setting."

"Like life or death? Probably my feelings, but of course you already know that." Connor's paused, realizing what he just said. God if he could control that tongue of his… He noticed Abby not saying anything either, which is understandable since he did _deny _ever saying anything to her in the first place. She looked flustered but when he noticed she was about to speak it freaked him out even more.

"That would bring back the subject about being a liar, wouldn't it?" she glared at him and he sighed. He really knew how to screw things up. And yet he felt his tongue still wasn't done.

"Yeah, and there would be a spot light on the both of us."

Abby sighed as well, knowing he was right. "At least I never said it."

"And that makes it better?" she didn't respond to that so Connor just groaned and leaned back in the seat. "I don't know how the other Connor dealt with you sometimes."

"Well I'm going to take a guess and say he didn't say things like that." She glanced at him again, seeing him staring at the ceiling of the car. "Besides, they loved each other. They didn't care if either of us were stubborn."

Connor couldn't help but repeat that in the back of his mind. Boy, were they stubborn sometimes. "Yeah, she even said yes when I proposed." He joked to lighten the mood some and she did smile at that.

"Well when _you _proposed I never gave an answer at all." Connor glanced at her confused and they both stayed quiet, meeting each other's eyes every time she'd look his way. Sooner or later they came near the airport and Connor's stomach sunk in. He didn't realize how much anomalies scared him now, but they frightened the heck out of him when they drove up. He noticed Abby giving him a reassuring look and he nodded as the ARC van pulled through clearance.

The cars pulled up into the opening, seeing the gigantic anomaly glimmering away. Connor and Abby hopped out of their car, Jenny, Sarah and Cutter jumping out of the other as Becker and his men pulled up behind. But no one was paying attention to the anomaly that always caught people's breath away, no they all stared at the very person who leaned on vehicle and smirked at them all.

Sarah walked closer and she was the first to speak. "**_Danny_**?"

* * *

_**Danny wasn't gone very long for you guys, I feel I should apologize but I'm not really sorry considering I love Danny. haha! Next and last chapter will be "The Change Was For The Better" and will give everything a nice wrap. Hopefully.**_

_**Hope you all liked it! Reviews are encouraged! **_


	15. The Change Was For The Better

_**Disclaimer: **_**I do not own Primeval or anything associated with it, I write for my and others enjoyment. No copyright intended. **

_**A/N:**_** Here it is! The finale! The very end comes to a bit of a shock, but a good one. It's not really expected to say the least. **

**I'd like to thank everyone for Reviewing, I'm so happy everyone seemed to like this story. The plot was really fun to write and mess with and I'm glad you all enjoyed it as well. Thanks so much Sallad24601 for helping me out with the plot ideas. Please, read and review one last time!**

* * *

"Sarah! You look absolutely ravishing." Danny grinned at her as they all just stood in disbelief. "So sorry I didn't call in before I just showed up like this. Completely slipped my mind."

"Danny… how are you…?" Abby trailed off.

"So handsome?" he laughed at his own joke and shook his head. "No, you probably were going to say alive."

"Yes, yes Jess – yeah, it's Quinn… Calm down, it's just Danny." Becker said to the com and Danny looked at him as if insulted.

"I don't think he likes me very much."

"Danny, how did you even know this anomaly was going to open?" Sarah said more intrigued than confused.

"Well, I thought since I was going to open it myself, and I knew an anomaly had opened here before…"

"Wait, what now?" Connor spurted out. "You _opened _it?"

"The futures like an anomaly convenient store, without the prices… or actual living people."

"What do you mean future?" Cutter asked. "What did you do, Quinn?"

"I changed nothing, I promise. I found me brother before I ever could even find an anomaly that led to that time, and in doing that we stuck together for a little while but … the future was a nasty place, we were stuck there for about a week and he didn't …" Danny stood up and sighed. "He didn't make it."

"Danny, I'm so sorry." Sarah placed her hand on his arm, wanting to comfort him but hardly knowing him much at all.

"You found your brother? He was still out there?" Becker questioned.

"Oh yeah, he went by Ethan though and he wasn't the most lovely of people to be quite honest. Being stuck in the past for that long gets to yah, I reckon."

"He was still your brother though," Abby said. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thanks, though I fear he was already lost by the time I found him. It's amazing what's out there though, there's teams of people who have been lost in anomalies! And the tech from the future, it's advanced beyond any of our knowledge!"

"Future tech? Is that what opened this anomaly?" Jenny asked. Danny nodded and showed her the glass screened hand-held. Jenny examined the device then suddenly threw it to the ground and stomped it with her heel.

"What the hell?"

"It's too dangerous to know what's from the future. It hasn't been designed yet, we could be destroying time itself. Have anything else?"

"If I did I wouldn't be giving it to you, would I?" and he felt Becker snatch his backpack and searched through it, looking for anything suspicious. He pulled out a club and Becker eyed him.

"If you stomp on Molly I'll club you with her myself. She ain't from the future, she ain't even tech." Becker just shook his head and continued his search. "You know if you hadn't destroyed the device so quickly I coulda closed the anomaly."

Jenny blushed. "Oh, it could do that?"

"Not anymore it can't. I'd advise the locking mechanism, the late Cretaceous tends to be a rough place to have dinosaurs coming in after yah." Connor nodded and the soldiers went to the car to get out the locking device.

Danny looked over at Connor and Abby as Becker's men brought mechanism over. They both looked over it to put it together and Danny gave a coy smile, knowing how much they despised him for going through. He had learned a lot these past months, including what he missed out on. He was once a leader of the ARC team itself, and he only found out from coming through an anomaly that led to the future and he was shot through the chest by a Taser gun. It brought him to a time his brother had found himself lost in as well and so he left the team that knew him much better than he ever would know back and went after his foolish, deranged brother that went through the wrong anomaly; which in the end led them to the future.

"Listen, I know I made a mistake, and I'm sorry …" he began, Connor and Abby stopping what they were doing to look at him. "If I could take it back though, I'm not sure I would. Besides, I didn't change anything, did I? We're all still here, ain't we? I just hope I don't find out I invented something like the hotdog and never got the credit."

"Hotdog…?" Abby gave him a confused look.

Danny look stunned and then when he saw Connor's grinning face he laughed, seeing as how she was teasing him. "All right, I deserve that one."

"It's okay, Danny." Connor said. "At least, for us it is… For the others, it might take them a little bit longer."

"Yeah, but it's not like you changed something huge like we did." Abby said with a chuckle and Danny smiled at them.

"Well, at least for us two, the change was for the better, yeah?" Connor questioned, looking at Abby.

"Yeah, guess it was." They all smiled, Danny trying not to make a comment about how mushy they were being, and Connor put the last piece of the device for it to be finished.

"So, what do we do now?" Jenny asked before Connor raised his hand to give the anomaly a final sealed ending when at all their surprise a Raptor burst out of it, snarling and hissing.

"You know I've 'bout had it with these things-!" Becker raised his gun and Abby forced his arm down, shouting a plea to not shoot it. "Abigail, it's dangerous and we don't exactly have tranquilizer handy!"

"And why the hell not?" Jenny hollered to him, showing worry in her eyes.

"Well when I was told a human came through the anomaly I didn't think traquing them would give me a gold star, it's stored up in the car."

"Becker and his gold stars." Connor teased, causing Becker to glare at him before he raised his gun again and shot after the Raptor, but missing from a pull on his arm. His head whipped around, expecting to see Abby, when he saw Connor looking more frightened than anyone in the room.

"You can't shoot that Raptor." He assured.

Becker growled. "And why is that?"

"Because if you do all of us might end up not being here anymore. **_That _**is the Raptor that changed Abby and I's timeline in the first place." The Raptor was upset now, feeling intimidated by the gun shots. It was getting ready to charge and Becker ignored Connor and Abby's pursuits, just staying focused on the team's safety. He shot after it as it darted left and right, tearing the building apart little by little and Connor turned to Abby as she watched, practically seeing her past months withering away.

"Don't worry, it did its job on us." He tried to say something to comfort her.

Abby shook her head, knowing that even that may not be hundred percent true, never knowing when the anomalies open. "But it's not very likely that it did its job on everyone else … There's no telling what could change if it hasn't finished its job on Helen."

Connor sighed and glanced at Cutter as he pulled out his gun as well; not ever hearing what Connor and Abby had said to Becker and helping Becker finish the Raptor off. They hadn't shot it … yet. He looked back at Abby, he had to do this – oh, forget romantic setting. He placed his hands on sides of her face, looking into her worrisome eyes before pressing his lips to hers in a soft, eager kiss that left Abby at a stand-still when he pulled away, letting them breathe.

Before she could even think he spoke. "I know I've made you angry, and I've made you irritated and unsure and scared and plenty more I'm sure but I never meant for you to ever feel like that – because Abby, I'm telling you this on the chance I don't make it back," he brushed the side of her cheek with his thumb and smiled. "I love you." Abby looked at him shocked, even though she knew it was true. He stared at her for a minute but then turned back to the anomaly, seeing its light starting to become dimmer from time. He turned back to her and looked at her one last time. "Remember that, yeah?"

Abby nodded, seeing how the anomalies strength was starting to dissipate. What was she doing? He was leaving without her telling him! "Connor!" he pulled on his arm to make him look at her. She wanted to kiss him but there wasn't time. "I love you, too." He grinned and tried to walk in front of the anomaly but she wouldn't let go. "You don't have to do this. Please, just let it be."

"I can't, not after everything I've seen." And his hand jerked from her grip as he let out a loud whistle, bringing everyone's attention, including the Raptor's, to Connor standing in front of the anomaly with a determined expression. "Oi, Raptor!" he yelled out, seeing the Raptor eye him like he had seen him once before. "Come and get me!"

The Raptor streaked forward, whoever held a gun unable to shoot it as it went straight for him, opening its jaw. Connor ran in through the anomaly, disappearing from their time and Abby's heart dropped as she watched the ball of light flicker by each breath a person seeped in. Its light was about gone – she could see it fading into nothing like it had the last time she jumped through one at its closing point. She closed her eyes, feeling Sarah's hand on her shoulder, when they all heard a shout from the other side of the anomaly.

Connor came jumping through the anomaly right before it closed for good, he was on his hands and knees, everyone around him cheering – or in Becker and Cutter's case yelling at his stupidity. Abby was frozen in her steps, hearing Cutter say something about being back on suspension made no effect on her as seeing him paralyzed her with overcoming joy. When she found movement in her legs the next thing she knew she was on her knees, sitting beside Connor himself as he gasped for air.

He let out a loud breath, coming out like a laugh. He looked up seeing Abby grinning at him. He sat up and shrugged. "Guess I made it back in time."

To his surprise Abby hurdled her body to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and hanging onto him as tears ran down her face and onto the back of his shirt. Connor held her tightly, finding comfort in her embrace. "Abs," he spoke.

"Hmm?" she asked, not pulling away just yet.

"I'm sorry." Abby then jerked away, searching his face for an answer of his words. "I'm never picking an anomaly over you again, I promise. I just couldn't let that Raptor change the past again, it wasn't right and I knew if-"Abby pressed her finger to his lips.

A smile spread across her face and she whispered "Shut up." before crushing her lips to his and entangling her fingers into his matted hair. Connor kept a tight hold onto her waist, smiling through the kiss as everyone in the team whistled or cheered and Jess randomly yelling through the com "I won!" But Abby and Connor didn't care; to them it was nothing but white noise.

Connor broke the kiss and kissed the tip of her nose. She looked at him in the eyes, leaning her forehead to his. "Connor Temple,"

"Hmm?" he said, losing himself in her blue eyes.

She flashed another grin before asking, "Will you marry me?"

* * *

_**Like I said, not really expected. haha I hope you all enjoyed it and if you are wondering, the answer is yes, there is a possibility of a sequel but it really depends on if I'm up to writing it or not. **_

_**My next project will be a bunch of shorts, possibly the sequel to this, and at some point the continuation to Connor and Abby's adventures in the Cretaceous. **_

_**Reviews are like Mac and Cheese.**_

_**I love Mac Cheese. **_


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